


A Matter of Perspective

by TheGuestAlikai2



Series: A Mop [1]
Category: Doctor Who, Doctor Who & Related Fandoms, Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: F/M, Multiple Doctors (Doctor Who)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-25
Updated: 2020-10-06
Packaged: 2021-03-04 02:02:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 29
Words: 181,472
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24915820
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheGuestAlikai2/pseuds/TheGuestAlikai2
Summary: She was a woman with endless power. He was a man who had endless suffering. Who could've predicted what would've happened when she decided to take it upon herself to end the Last Great Time War in his place? My take on a fan traveling to the Whoniverse. Cross Posted on FFN. Chapters 1 through 7 changed so now it's 1 through 4, with various edits.
Relationships: Doctor/OC
Series: A Mop [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1803046
Comments: 7
Kudos: 9





	1. Anna (but not Karenina)

**Author's Note:**

> A/N: So, this is an idea I've had floating around in my head for a while. What would've happened if the Doctor had never ended the Time War? How much would that actually change? (So hint hint, there will be spoilers for all of NuWho. This is also my take on the whole, 'Fan travels to the Whoniverse'.)  
> Cross Posted on FFN (so the first 22 chapters will be posted here in one day. Binge read anybody?).  
> All titles are based on classic novel titles (or I'll keep to that as close as possible), except for when dealing with an episode.  
> Chapter title based on, "The Sun Also Rises."  
> Although no one is surprised, I do not own Doctor Who and am making no money from this fun little endeavor.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Edited 5/16  
> Edit 8/19: Hello! If you've already read the story, you'll notice I've made a couple of changes. Chs. 1 and 2 have been combined, as well as 4-6. The story will therefore be three chapters shorter than it was previously.  
> 

On a faraway planet, on what was supposed to be it's very last day, a man was carrying a box across the desert that had once been his home.

This is where he planned to end it for them all.

No more, he'd declared. No more suffering, no more pain. Even as the sweat beaded and dropped down his face, even as the twin suns beat harshly against his back, he stood by that pledge, no matter the cost.

Even if the cost was every life on Gallifrey and the daleks beyond.

Although he didn't know it, this would always be the last day of the Last Great Time War.

Always meant something different in English than it did in Gallifreyan. Think about it. In English terms, always referred to one version of reality: i.e., Sharon would always buy the blue car in one version of reality, but in another she would always buy the red one.

In every version of reality, no matter what happened and no matter the circumstances, this would always be the last day of the Last Great Time War.

That's not to say that it was a fixed point. Fixed points pertained to events that had to happen in a specific way in order for that specific version of reality to continue trudging on as it should. Though, that wasn't to say that certain fixed points weren't fixed points across multiple versions of reality.

The point was, this would always be the last day of the Last Great Time War, and it would always lead to a man carrying a box across the desert.

The box itself was more than a box. The men who had designed it had intended for it to be the greatest weapon in all of destruction. The Galaxy Eater, they had called it, intent on believing that they could create a weapon that would destroy whole universes and would bend to their will.

But, design and destiny are two different things.

The box's destiny was not to fulfill their design. Things like design often get thrown out of whack when there's another sentient being involved, whether the sentience was believed in or not. The box, or The Moment, as it was called, was smug in the knowledge that it's destiny was as far from their design as one could possibly get. It could see that destiny stretched out before it: the barn and the conversation that would take place, changing the lives of trillions forever.

That was The Moment's destiny.

Well, for another minute, anyway. Though neither of them knew it, the course of both of their lives (if what The Moment had was considered a life) was about to altered, forever.

He hadn't made it that far, the box in tow, when a time storm disrupted his time sense.

He could feel it deep in his chest, time twisting and tangling up like some wild dance that it couldn't quite perfect and decided to improvise instead. It was like a Class Five hurricane, a tornado and a tsunami, all occurring at the same time, all fighting for his undivided attention at the exact same instance.

He didn't have time for it to settle.

The ground beneath him began to shake uncontrollably, and, due to the haze surrounding whatever event had occurred to throw the Web of Time into such disarray, he couldn't catch himself as he was thrown to the red sands below his feet.

He heard screams above him and, in a daze, he looked up.

He was both mesmerized and terrified by the sight suddenly overtaking the burnt orange sky overhead. "What're they doing?" He'd never realize he asked the question aloud as he managed to regain his senses enough to stand on shaking feet. After years of piloting a boisterous Tardis, this felt like nothing to him. "What are they all doing?"

The sight above him was nothing like he'd ever seen before.

It was a coordinated dalek attack. His soldier's mind told him that's what it must be, for he'd known nothing else for nearly a millennia. Fives lines of daleks stretched across the burnt orange sky, shaped like that of a human child's drawing of a star. They were all converging on one point.

He couldn't discern the different cries, the _exterminates_ from the _reports_ , but he knew that's what they were saying. That's what they always said, whether it be during the nightmares that visited him on the nights that he slept (which could stretch on until he'd realized it'd been ten years and he hadn't closed his eyes once) or in the conscious hours during which he fought endless battles, hearing their cries in the far off distance from the 'comfort' of a battle tent or on the front lines as he fought with the very men he was more than willing to burn to end a war that would've destroyed the very cosmos itself.

The last dalek flew into whatever it was that they were flying into and a pulse of energy shot out, brighter than even the suns. He blinked away the glare and when he did, he was greeted with an absolutely empty sky.

Silence had fallen so completely across all of Gallifrey that he was sure he would've been able to hear a word spoken from a thousand miles away. His hearts were doing double time in his chest, despite the stillness. What had happened? Most importantly, where had the daleks disappeared to?

It was then that he saw it.

Against the backdrop of orange, there was a single black speck that was rapidly falling. He'd managed to gather his wits about him enough that he was able to pull out his sonic, trying to discern if this had been what had pulled the daleks in or if this was some kind of weapon.

The sky was suddenly alight again. Apparently, the rest of Gallifrey had woken up out of their dalek induced stupor. He watched as ships swarmed the speck, tractor beams shooting out, ships even getting underneath it to physically catch it, but to no avail.

When he glanced down at the sonic, his very old eyebrows raised.

It was a human girl.

Were that the case, the sonic was nowhere near sensitive enough to pick up information like that from this far off. Yet, there the readings stated, in Gallifreyan for his eyes to see, that it was a human girl that was currently falling from the sky.

No, he had to correct himself a moment later. The human girl that had been falling from the sky.

The black speck was gone.

He would've said that the soldiers had caught her, but they were still scrambling about in an erratic and uncoordinated formation. It meant that she had disappeared from sight, without a trace.

He needed to find her. Whatever she actually was, she'd been at the epicenter of whatever event had just occurred. Even if she didn't have answers, it was still a start. As luck would have it, he hadn't actually made it that far from the Tardis, and he ran through the sand, surprisingly light on his feet as he carried The Moment all the while.

He made it back to the Tardis in record time. It didn't end up making the slightest bit of difference. As he reached the doors, he caught something in his peripheral vision: a fireball that was heading straight for him, The Moment and the Tardis.

Moving quicker than he'd ever remembered moving, he unlocked the doors before he took two steps in, slamming the Tardis door behind him.

Despite the fact that nothing could get through the doors, his soldier's mind had still expected there to be some kind of reverberations through the door from the impact. There were no reverberations, however, and as he pressed his ear to the door, he was met with something eerie.

Absolute silence.

Slowly and cautiously, with all the expectation that he was about to be fired upon by a dalek extermination ray, he barely opened the door, viewing the outside world through the small opening the doors had created.

A moment later, though he didn't exit the Tardis, he did open the door the rest of the way.

There, laying on the red sand in front of him was a humanoid girl, still smoldering from her descent. His brows pulled together and he did a quick scan with the sonic to see that she was, in fact, a human girl. According to the sonic readings, it was, in fact, the same human girl that had been falling from the sky not moments before.

He had many questions that he wanted to ask. Who was she? How had she gotten here? Why didn't there appear to be a scratch on her, internally or externally, save for her clothes, which had been badly burned in the descent?

His entire life was made up of split second choices. This was no different.

He walked over to the woman, gently testing her skin to find that it wasn't boiling to the touch but was, instead, a normal human temperature. He picked her up bridal style before he carried her through the doorway of the Tardis, depositing her gently on the floor before he did what he did best: he ran.

This time, it wasn't from anything. For perhaps the first time in his life, he was running to something: answers, including the answer to his most important question.

What, exactly, had just occured?

Everything had changed.

He just wouldn't know that until it was far too late.

#####

She jumped up.

It was as simple as that; no muss, no fuss. One second, she was laying down on the white paneling where he'd placed her, the next, she was standing.

Her intelligent blue eyes roamed the console room before they landed on him. Her face went through a vast array of emotions, from calculation to confusion to analyzation before it landed on an overabundance of joy.

"Hello," she started, before he'd had a chance to utter a word. "I'm Anna Monroe. I'm the woman who just singlehandedly used my incredible powers to save Gallifrey from any present or future dalek attacks. Transported them all into an alternate dimension where they can happily exterminate amongst themselves. Populated it with empty planets, it'll take them until the end of this universe to even _realize_ there isn't anything to conquer. Also, put up barriers around Gallifrey, six, to be precise, to prevent any daleks that I may have missed from slipping through. They get within a hundred miles of this planet and they get sucked in to join their little dalek buddies. As for anybody else looking to restart the Time War, they'll be sucked in as well, deposited back where they started. Wouldn't put them with the daleks, that'd just be cruel-"

She made a noise of pain before she clutched her side. Despite the fact that he hadn't been able to process a word that she'd spoken, he still rushed to her, managing to catch her before she fell to the white paneled flooring below.

"It's all right, I've got you, I've got you, just breathe."

She was breathing hard and she opened her eyes. A smile graced her face. "Hello," she said.

"Hello," he replied. What she'd just relayed to him was starting to break through to where it could be understood, but he wasn't so much focused on that as he was on helping the woman who'd seemingly fallen from the sky. Delirious. She had to be. "You can call me-"

He mistepped in introducing himself. After all, what were use of names in a war such as this? He'd been either 'Commander' or 'sir' for nearly the past millennia. Neither felt right, and neither of them were words he wanted to hear from this innocent woman who hadn't been touched by war.

She saved him from this when she smiled even wider.

"I know who you are," she told him. "The War is over. I ended it. Now, I swear to you that you will never have to use The Moment. I promise."

In a fashion as dramatic as her words, she passed out in his arms.

It wasn't long before he regenerated into a new man. About five hours or so passed before his body gave out, the orange glow radiating from his fingertips. He left the room so she wouldn't get caught up in the blast, but once it was over, he'd moved back inside and resumed his tests and the like. He'd gotten ten minutes into this and had to pause to change clothes, this body no longer suited to the clothes the now dead man had worn.

From what he could tell, the woman was young, even by human standards. Everything about her seemed entirely ordinary, from her strawberry blonde hair to her freckle covered skin, and if he didn't know any better, he'd say she was entirely human.

But, he did know better, even if his computers seemed not to. To do the things she'd claimed that she'd done, it wouldn't be possible for her to simply be human.

As to what she'd claimed she'd done, well, he had no reason not to believe her. What else could that little display have been _but_ pulling the daleks into an alternate dimension where they could 'happily exterminate amongst themselves'? He hadn't headed back to see about the barriers surrounding Gallifrey, but he was certain she wasn't lying about those either.

If that were the case, it meant that she was a being of _immense, incredible_ power. He hadn't been able to find any technology on her, and besides that, there _wasn't_ any technology that could've done what she'd described. He would've done that ages ago, if it had been simple enough to simply create a machine to pull daleks into an alternate dimension where they couldn't hurt anybody.

That was another thing, too. Not only had she stopped the daleks, she'd done it _without_ killing them, without killing _anyone_.The Doctor had seen a lot of things in his nine hundred years; miracles were not one of them. But this?

What else could he call this but a miracle, plain and simple? It was a miracle, one that had made it possible for him not to be the one to the end War. He would be nothing but grateful for that.

The woman stirred before she opened her eyes, looking around. He didn't move, and her eyes quickly found him.

Part of him wanted her face to light up like it had before, but the other part wasn't sure why it mattered. She was about to be on her way, to perform miracles across the known universe. He wasn't selfish enough to think that he could keep her to himself, to show her the universe as some part of his mind was already planning. She had work to do, saving other planets and people the way she'd done for him-

For Gallifrey. The way she'd done for Gallifrey.

He pushed this errant thought from his mind, especially when he saw that her face was not lighting up as it had been, before. Instead, there seemed to be a dumbstruck expression on her face.

"Oh," she said quietly.

Confusion thrummed through him at the look on her face (and he was desperately trying to ignore the tiny bit of crestfallen feeling he had at the fact that her face had _not, in fact, lit up, why does she look like that?_ He wondered).

Her face transformed to a more relieved end in the next moment. "Oh, okay, cool," she said, and she started to sit up.

"Woah, slow and steady," he told her, reaching out to help her sit up. Her skin was cool to the touch, and he frowned, wondering if she needed a blanket of some kind or if her kind simply ran cooler. "Bit cool," he pointed out, just in case.

"What is?" she asked him, looking up at him to catch his eyes with hers.

They weren't a blue as he'd thought, but more of a green, exactly halfway between sea and emerald. He cleared his throat, raising his eyebrow as he turned from her.

"You are," he said. "Blanket?" he offered, moving to the cabinet where the heated blankets were stored (and sternly telling himself to _stop being disappointed that he was no longer holding her hand_ ).

"I'm good, actually," she said, and he stopped where he was. "We need to talk."

He raised his eyebrows, whirling back around to look at her. _Why_ was there a stupid hope leaping in his chest? He genuinely didn't understand the emotion that was running through him, but he shoved it out as quickly as he could. He crossed his arms, searching her.

"How much, um…"

To say he was surprised by the uncertainty she held herself with would be an understatement. This was the woman who had literally saved all of Gallifrey and the rest of the universe beyond from total and complete annihilation. Confidence should've been oozing off of her. Yet, she could barely meet his eyes.

"How much do you… did you confirm, or… whatever?"

He raised his eyebrows. "Confirm?" he asked.

He furrowed his brows when she looked down at her lap, wringing her hands together as she looked at anywhere but him, refusing to meet his gaze.

"Yeah, you know. About what I said."

He frowned. "Nothing," he said. Her eyes finally shot up to meet his, confusion and concern lining her face. "I didn't exactly need to, did I? What with seeing the daleks all being sucked in like that. Thought that was a pretty obvious confirmation, but then again, I have been known to be stupid on occasion. I'm the Doctor, by the way. Didn't get a chance to introduce myself before you passed out. In my arms, too. Right after declaring that you'd saved Gallifrey. If you wanted to put on a show, I have to tell you, you beyond succeeded. Well done." He tried to convey a joking and comforting tone, hoping to ease the tension that rested about her (just in that friendly way he was known to do. That's all this was, mind. Just him being friendly).

It seemed to do the opposite as a look rolled through her eyes, that uncertainty increasing. She gently worried her bottom lip ( _don't, don't, don't_ , he chanted to himself about the sudden swell of emotions) before she shrugged, shaking her head, looking away.

"Wasn't doing anything of the sort," she said.

Suddenly, her emotions were tucked neatly away, a nonchalance resting about her. He felt like he'd made a mistake without even knowing what the mistake was (and some part of him wanted to desperately rectify it, despite the fact that he shouldn't want anything in regards to her. She was about to gallivant off)-

Hold on, why hadn't she gallivanted off?

"You said you wanted to talk," he remembered, cutting her off before she could continue speaking.

"I did," she said, examining her nails. "Like I said, Gallifrey is saved-"

"And so's the rest of the universe," he cut her off once more. If she understood exactly what it was that she'd done, she wasn't acting like it. She kept only specifically mentioning Gallifrey when she talked about what she'd saved. There was far more at stake than just a simple planet. If it had been that simple, he wouldn't have taken the actions that he'd done. Well, nearly done, at any rate, thanks to the woman in front of him.

Although guilt had started burning in his gut at the memory of what he'd nearly done, an unknowable gratitude swelled in him at the remembrance of what she _had_ done, and he spoke as she looked up at him, her eyebrows raised. "Thank you."

It was a paltry excuse of expressing his gratitude, these two simple words. He was sure she was used to it, though, saving lives and planets and whole universes and receiving a simple 'thank you' in return.

Still, it was as good a start as any (not that he was in any way thinking about how else he could thank her. He _definitely_ wasn't thinking about all the planets and places and people he could show her. Maybe she was a power of incredible being, but that didn't mean she'd seen every part of the universe. Some part of him was desperate to show it to her, even if every other part of him was shoving away the thought).

Completely unaware of his thoughts, she smiled, though it was a little bitter as she looked down at her fingernails. "Universe would've been fine without me," she told him, before she put her hands in her lap.

Before he could unpack this or ponder what it meant, he was startled. He'd changed her out of her burnt clothes and cleaned her up a bit so that the ash and soot from dropping out of the sky no longer clung to her like a second skin. Now though, instead of wearing the hospital gown that he'd changed her into, she was wearing a simple, strapless purple dress with strappy sandals to match.

He wasn't startled for long, quickly moving into distraction when she met his eyes. Her eyes were now a deeper green, edging more toward emerald. Was she doing that as well, he wondered, changing her eye color as easily as she changed her clothes?

(The answer was an obvious yes. Be a bit of a trick to be able to save whole planets and change her clothes on a whim, but not be able to change her eye color as she pleased).

He barely remembered what she'd said, but he cleared his throat.

"How-how'd you mean?" he asked. He frowned, trying to concentrate on her face and to stop his eyes from wandering down to the now exposed skin, tracing her collarbone, wandering further still-

(Stop it, he ordered himself. He couldn't be having thoughts like this. He was a time lord and she was… well, whatever she was. It wouldn't do to even entertain the thought of urges like this. Especially because he wasn't _having_ any. None from him, thanks much. He was a _time lord_. He wasn't chained to pleasures of the flesh like humans were (like that had ever stopped him before)-).

When he'd finally managed getting his eyes back to her face, he saw that she still wasn't looking at him. Instead, she was tugging at the hem of her dress which flowed outward to sit on the bed. Her legs (her bare legs)- Her _legs_ were crossed at the ankle (and the part that was focused on her legs- _very much not focused on her legs_ was also very much _not_ focused on the fact that she wasn't looking at him, not at all wondering if her eyes had changed color in the seconds since he'd last seen them, definitely not desperately wishing for that to change and for her to simply look him in the eye once more).

He had no idea what was happening to him, but they needed to get through this conversation much quicker than they currently were.

"I mean," she started, "that you never would've let Gallifrey burn."

Well. That would _certainly_ help them get through the conversation quicker.

Bitter disappointment and pain crescendoed through him in equal measure. Foolishly, some part of him thought that she didn't know what he'd nearly done and now that he knew that she knew, it changed everything.

Any plans he'd started to have in regards to showing her the universe vanished with that single sentence, knowing that could never happen, now. Why would a being who had saved the entire universe without spilling a drop of blood want to stick with someone like _him_ , someone who'd been so desperate that he nearly ended his own race?

He cleared his throat, finding that he was now the one who couldn't look her in the eye.

"So, you know, then," he said, his eyebrows raised.

He suddenly remembered what he'd willing let himself ignore, the promise that she'd made to him about never having to use a weapon like The Moment. His eyebrows raised even higher as he realized this conversation might be much different from the one he'd been expecting, though what conversation he was expecting, he wasn't sure. Was she about to tell him that she would also be sending him to an alternate dimension as she'd done with the daleks, so that he couldn't destroy Gallifrey, either?

The more he thought about it, the more it was the only thing that made this whole thing make sense. This was why she wasn't gallivanting off, why there was a tenseness resting about her despite her actions and the uncertainty she held herself with. He recognized that look. No matter how much she hated it, she'd had to make the hard choice to condemn him to the same fate that she'd chosen for the daleks. Of course. He was about to be sent to an alternate dimension so that Gallifrey could be protected from the likes of him.

"I thought…" she started, and he frowned, though he didn't look at her. His shoulders rounded out, his arms crossed over his chest, ready for the moment she sentenced him to life in a lifeless alternate dimension.

It was useless to try to fight, even more useless to attempt running. Just where would he even begin to attempt to run to? That aside, he was absolutely certain that this was what he deserved. He'd nearly ended Gallifrey. There was no doubt in his mind that he would've done if she hadn't've come along when she did.

She continued, once again unaware of his thoughts. "No, but I did say something. Before, I promised you that you wouldn't have to use The Moment. Um… So I thought that you already knew that I knew." There was a silence between them for a moment, and he steeled himself over. "But… There's more."

His frown only deepened, crossing his arms more deeply over his chest.

"More?" he asked her, his tone flat. He still refused to meet her eye (and some part of him was so desperately sad at the thought that he would never get to find out if her eyes had changed color once more).

At this thought, he steeled himself over, wishing she would just hurry up and get it over with, already. Then again, maybe this was part of the punishment. Dragging it out like this.

"I, um… I'm from somewhere," she told him, and at that, he frowned deeper, finally looking up at her. "You're from somewhere else. Now, I don't know how this happened, or why, but somehow, information from somewhere else leaked to somewhere. …I don't really know how to say this delicately, and that aside, you're not really a delicately telling things to kind of guy, so I'll just say it: somehow, someway, that information got turned into… a… television show."

She let out the last two words with a breath. He was frowning for a different reason, now, though he didn't speak.

"It… details your life, from your first incarnation to… Well, far into your future. It got cancelled in the late 80s, but it got a reboot in 2005, starting with this incarnation. That's when I started watching-"

He held up his hand, forgetting for a moment that he was about to be sentenced to an alternate dimension in order to keep Gallifrey safe. Despite this, she fell silent.

"You're saying that there's a television show somewhere out there about my life."

"In-in a different dimension, or plane of existence, or alternate universe, I don't… actually know how these things work and I'm not keen to find out?" she quickly rushed to explain. "That's-that's what I mean, the 'somewhere' and the 'somewhere else'. It's a different, you know. Universe. Or dimension. Something. I don't know."

He raised his eyebrows, unable to process this.

She was telling him that, not only had she come from another dimension, or universe, or whatever, that not only had she done that, on her own, _without_ technology of _any sort_ , but that she'd done so in order to save his universe from destruction… because of something that she'd seen on television?

"Exactly how powerful are you?" he asked her, before he'd had a chance to think it through.

Despite the fact that she easily could've been offended or any other number of things that ended with him being smote (smitted? … smitten? Well, he was that, already, no 'ending up with him being' required.

No, wait, hang about, _he was not smitten, he was_ not)-

Instead of simply turning him to dust where he stood, she spoke.

"Powerful enough to know that stopping the Time War completely wasn't something I could've done without completely shifting the universe on its axis and basically creating a new universe where lives wouldn't have been born and loves wouldn't have been had and creating about the same amount of change to the fabric of time as the Time War would've done anyway… but also powerful enough to know that I could end the Time War on the same day you had planned to use The Moment without the same disastrous effects to the universe at large."

At the mention of The Moment and what he'd been planning on doing, he found himself intensely scouring her expression for the judgement he was sure he would find marring her beautiful features.

But, it wasn't present. In the place of the judgement he wholly deserved, he found an honest, earnest, and, if he were naïve, he would say comforting, expression looking back at him with soft eyes.

"I say planned because that's all that it was. Just a plan. You never would've gone through with it."

He stood up straighter at that.

"What're you on about?"

There was a distinct lack of aggression in his voice, just a soft tone that he wished his voice currently wasn't using.

"I'm on about the fact that… The Moment is sentient, but it's- she, they? Anyway, The Moment is more powerful than anybody ever intended. … It, I guess, it was able to take human form and converse with you about the choice you were about to make. It would've brought two different incarnations to you, to show you the man you would've become-"

"I wouldn't have become anything."

There was a rawness to his tone because he'd never intended to speak, the honest words just tumbling from his mouth without his say so. It was the truth, though. He'd never intended to survive the War, not after what he would've done.

"And it would've told you that was your punishment, for destroying them."

He imagined that life, then. Imagined the lonely existence that would've been, trudging about the universe as the last of the Time Lords. For starters, he never would've taken on another companion again. How could he have done? How could he expose someone, let alone the bright and brilliant humans he traveled with, to that kind of darkness?

He wasn't one to avoid pain, but this thought was too painful to bear, and he pushed it from his mind. It was made easier as she continued to speak.

"But, as I was saying, it tried to convince you to change your mind by showing you the man you would've become, if you had done this. Basically…" she bit her lip, before she continued. "Basically, the three of you realized that you could save Gallifrey, by freezing it in a single moment in time, hiding it away in a pocket universe where it could be safe. I don't entirely understand it, but somehow, you were able to start doing the calculations in your first incarnation, and thus, by the time you were the future you saving Gallifrey, you had the calculations in order to do so. Bonus, the daleks ended up exterminating themselves. So, basically," she started, standing and starting towards him. He couldn't take his eyes off of her, let alone move. "You never needed me. All that I did was spare you hundreds of years worth of pain thinking that you'd committed the worst atrocity that a person could commit. Well, that and saved Gallifrey from being in a pocket universe, and helped the buildings remember to be buildings by reconstructing them so Gallifrey is basically brand new, but other than that-"

"Why?" he croaked out, unable to do anything else as he stared at her. Every part of him was on fire, his twin hearts beating wildly in his chest. Whether it was from the revelation or something else, he didn't know. He wasn't sure that he cared. "Why do all of this?"

She crept up to him, and he searched her eyes. He could see the fight that rested in her eyes as she took the three steps it took to reach him, but despite this, she didn't stop herself. She reached out, her hand curled in mid-air for a moment, before she managed to place it gently on his cheek.

"No one deserves to be in that kind of pain. But you? I can't think of anyone less deserving of that kind of pain than you."

He was a time lord. Emotions overwhelming him wasn't generally a problem.

But, in that moment, the emotions were a tidal wave, cresting over every part of him. He responded in kind, his arm immediately wrapping itself around her waist and pulling her to him, pressing her flush against him as his lips crashed into hers.

Surprise crashed through her, making her tense against him. After a moment, it melted as she melted into him, responding to the kiss.

Wave after wave of emotion washed over him, a strange mix of joy and relief and sorrow for the him who hadn't had this, who hadn't had that reprieve and that happiness. He wasn't focused on that long, because he kept trying to urge himself to draw back, kept trying to urge himself to ask her the question that he wanted to ask. He couldn't bring himself to. He couldn't bring himself to withdraw from her. All he wanted to do, in that moment, was hold her tight and never let her out of his arms.

An idea of how to make that possible sparked through him. It gave him the motivation he needed to withdraw from her (but only just).

He moved so fast that, when he opened his eyes, he saw her lips following his for a moment before her eyes were on his (and a distracted part of his mind noted that her eyes were erring more on the side of grey, now. It was wonderful). His left hand still cradled her head and he caressed her cheek with his thumb.

"Travel with me," he said, without hesitation.

"Okay," she replied, just as easily.

He laughed, a joyous thing rumbling through his chest. "Okay," he agreed. For a moment, he got lost in the grey of her eyes, and for the first time, the Doctor wondered how he'd gotten so lucky for Anna to just appear in his life like this, saving him when he'd needed it the most.

He'd have the same exact thought countless times throughout his very long life, seeing her tip her head back and laugh or as she lovingly cleaned the console.

But, that wasn't now. Now was leaning in to continue kissing Anna, starting the beginning of his newfound destiny.

Was it still considered destiny when it had technically been designed by her? After all, he'd been destined to have many adventures and love many and lose many more, all while weighed down by the guilt and loneliness he'd felt. Was it truly destiny if it was layered in a decision that she had made?

Truth be told, the Doctor didn't care whether it was destined or designed. It didn't matter; not to him, to the person it was supposed to matter to the most. The point wasn't that she'd changed his life so that he didn't suffer the consequences of a choice he'd never made. The point was that he'd been given back the time that would've been spent feeling guilty for an act he'd never even committed.

That was what she'd done for him. Given him back that time to be unburdened and therefore, better able to appreciate the adventures he would have and the people he would love and the lives he would end up saving.

In another timeline, a curly haired part time lord once pointed out, "Happily ever after isn't about forever. It's just about more time."

Perhaps that same curly haired part time lord would say those words in this timeline, too.

But, that's a story for another day, and spoilers for this one.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: After re-writing this five times, I'm actually pretty happy with the end result (even if I did tear my hair out to do it and actually threatened to throw this chapter in a volcano because it just wasn't working). I hope you like it.  
> As stated above, HOPEFULLY my updates should be coming quicker, now that this whole deal is out of the way, because I've moved on from explanations and can jump into the actual story! I have literally the entire thing planned out and the only reason I'm not getting updates out faster is because of the whole 'rewriting chapter two five times'. ... Well that but also because I still have to actually write the thing. There's a clever quote that I want to say is from Shakespeare in Love that's to that effect? ... Or a movie about Shakespeare. ... Well, it was definitely Shakespeare who said the line, at the very least.  
> Moving on.  
> Just as a quick mention, this story is unbeta'd, so all mistakes are mine.  
> Edit 8/19: For those of you who have already stated it and those who might mention it, I KNOW that the whole 'him being so 'smitten' (as the ever brilliant Catlorde put it)' isn't in his character. I promise, I PROMISE, I have a REALLY good explanation for it, so if you're planning on giving up the story for that alone, I do have a plan on how to explain why this happened (granted it won't be for like another three stories but we'll get there).  
> Anyway, thanks for taking the time to read, and don't forget to review to either let me know what you thought or to let me know what you thought of the changes!


	2. Catch-24

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Welcome back!  
> Chapter title is based on the book, "Catch-22."  
> Story is unbeta'd, and as always, I don't own Doctor Who.  
> Edit 8/19

It wasn't long before the Doctor got too excited about the thought that he would show her the universe. "Come on," he said, grabbing her hand before he pulled her from the medbay.

She obliged, happily even, not at all deterred at the fact that he'd interrupted their kiss. He didn't think about that, either. "Where'd you want to go?" he asked, pulling her down the corridor. "Anywhere and anywhen-"

When they entered the console room, he stopped immediately.

He'd memorized every bit of his console room over the past millennia as he'd done with every console room he'd ever had. Now, everything about her was different; no longer was she white paneling on the floor and white round bits along the walls. Now, she was all coral struts and grating and, if he were being honest with himself, looked a bit like something out of a steampunk novel.

His smile was renewed at the sight of it. New him, new Tardis. How right that was.

"Anywhere and anywhen," he continued his spiel as he danced around the console. This felt good, he realized. He wasn't piloting to fight those horrible creatures or to save a squadron of men what couldn't be saved. Instead, he was piloting to do what he did best: see the universe with someone wonderful at his side. "The only rule is that it has to be somewhere you've never been before."

"Shouldn't-" she started, mumbling too low for him to hear, or so he assumed that she thought. He wondered, then, how much she actually knew about him and his biology. Not that that was important, he realized. They had places to travel and things to do (and somewhere in the back of his mind, he had to acknowledge that he was hoping there would be people to save. Some part of him wanted that old fashioned adventure back. He wasn't a fool. He knew life wouldn't resume to normal straight away, not even for him. But, if he could have just this one thing, then maybe he could count the day as a success).

He pushed this from his mind, looking up at her expectantly.

"Well?"

No longer was she wearing the purple dress. She was now wearing a white sleeveless jumpsuit which cut off mid-thigh and was also strapless. It had a flower print, a single flower that had the full flower blooming near her shoulder with the stem twisting around, flowers occasionally blooming across her body, though the shorts were decorated in them. Daisies, he thought, somewhat absentmindedly. She still wore her strappy sandals, though her hair, lighter now, was falling around her shoulders in light curls.

She leaned up against the console, smirking at him. "You know what I want?"

"Obviously not," he replied, though his tone was no less jovial.

"I want a metal city floating on water, where the locals are having a festival that only happens once every thousand years." She quirked an eyebrow. "Think you can do that?"

"I can have us orbiting a supernova before we visit Oscar Wilde for tea and biscuits to discuss 'The Importance of Being Earnest,' and then head back to see the rise _and_ fall of the Roman Empire." He took a beat. "And that'll be all before noon. Metal city floating on water? Easy."

He could think of three such places already; the only thing left was to decide which one she would like the most.

At that thought, he pulled the lever.

"Anna Monroe, I give you the floating city of-"

He opened the doors, but stopped, frowning.

"Carnival?"

It was a beautiful day, blue sky sitting happily above them. They were somewhere in the 1950s, mid-western Earth. In front of them was exactly what one might expect from this area: screaming kids on carnival rides and kids sitting atop their dad's shoulders as they ate cotton candy and the like.

The Tardis had landed them on a grassy knoll, smack dab in the middle of the action, though not directly in the walking path of any unsuspecting kids who weren't watching where they were heading as they ran to the next ride and might run smack dab into the outer shell.

Anna stuck her head out.

"Gonna take a wild guess and say this isn't the floating city of some magnificent place in some magnificent time," she said. He took a step forward and she literally hopped out, landing on the grass below her feet. "I'm taking my shoes off," she declared.

He watched, confused, as she did just that. How many times had he seen her change shoes already in the blink of an eye, and here she was, manually taking them off? Why?

Oh, and now, she was throwing them back into the Tardis. He heard the soft thud that sounded when they landed, and he looked down at her, expecting her to see the look on his face. She did no such thing, instead, putting her hands in her pockets as she wiggled her toes in the grass.

"So," she said, and he didn't know what he was more distracted by, the fact that she was wearing an anklet suddenly or the fact that there was what looked to be a tattoo, just barely peeking out from underneath her jumpsuit on her right thigh. He didn't get a chance to decide. "Where've we ended up? Looks to be Earth."

He crossed his arms, raising his eyebrows. "You mean you don't know?" he asked, sounding almost condescending for no good reason.

She looked up at him lazily, smiling. "I know literally everything there is to know about the universe. Doesn't mean I have to know it all the time." Before he could ponder what that meant, she donned a smirk, crossing her own arms. "Besides that, I wouldn't have to know it if a certain someone's driving skills were up to par, mr. supernova and Oscar Wilde and rise and fall of the Roman Empire, all before noon."

There wasn't any malice in her voice. If he didn't know better, he'd say she was teasing him.

Despite this, he still said, "Oi!" his face devolving towards that end. She was too busy being satisfied, smiling as she walked away, to take notice. He quickly started after her. "I will have you knowthat my driving skills are fine, thanks."

She laughed as she put her hands in her pocket, taking deliberate steps. "No, definitely," she agreed. "That's why this is definitely the Floating City of… Well, you did say it was the Floating City of 'Carnival'. Mission accomplished, I guess."

There was a teasing look in her eyes as she spoke.

"Fine, then," he said, his own eyes wandering about and taking in the sea of poodle skirts and plaid shirts and khakis around him. None of them were barefoot like Anna. None of them were _like_ Anna, he mused. Still, he continued his sentiment, not letting on just how much he enjoyed just about everything about her. "If you think you can do so much better, you can drive next time."

"I don't think the Tardis likes me enough to let me drive. Yet," she said, and when he looked back down at her, he realized she was completely serious.

He furrowed his brow, his arms dropping. "Do you know something about Tardises that I don't?" he asked.

"I know lots of things you don't," she told him, specifically (and just a dash of cleverly) skirting around the question. She spun around so that she was walking backwards, and he realized, in that moment, that she trusted him not to let her run into anything. "Like, for example, that I don't like carnivals."

His hearts dropped a little in his chest at that proclamation. "What?" he asked, disliking that the first proper place they'd landed in, they'd ended up in a place she didn't even like. That wouldn't do. That wouldn't do at all. "Why'd you walk out, then? You should've said."

He started to stalk off, walking back to the Tardis, but when he glanced back, he saw that she was just standing there, staring at a spot on the grass covered ground. At the look on her face, he spoke.

"Anna?"

The sound suddenly died away, the noise from the children and the rides becoming background. "I don't hate carnivals," she told him, quietly, without looking up at him. "I just don't like this one in particular." She looked up at him, a furrow to her brow. "Something's wrong."

"What?" he asked her, trying to feel out with his senses if he could feel the same thing she could.

Her face relaxed and the noise bled back in, only now, the screaming children and the carnival music felt more sinister than it had before.

"If I knew what it was, I wouldn't have said 'something', would I?" she asked.

"Are you going to be like this all day?"

"Only if you keep asking stupid questions."

Before he had a chance to react to that particular statement, she leaned forward, standing on her tiptoes, to plant a kiss on his lips.

It had the desired effect that he was sure she'd wanted, sending a shiver through his body. When she pulled away, he felt disappointment pooling deep in his gut. He was almost tempted to reach out and pull her back so that at the very least they could resume kissing. He held himself back at the last second, remembering her words.

"Let's split up," she told him as she backed away, walking backwards with deliberate steps once more.

"What'm I looking for?"

A smirk appeared on her lips as she barely turned her face to the side. "Shouldn't you already know the answer to that question? Considering you're The Doctor, and all."

Something welled up in him at that, something strange and familiar and wonderful. It was like, hearing that name, he remembered his purpose. A huge grin broke out on his face at that, wide and proud.

"I am," he agreed.

"Then shift," she told him, as if it were obvious. She turned on her heel, her hands clasped behind her back, before she stalked off.

He smiled more broadly, looking around.

Time to be The Doctor.

It didn't even take him long to find out what the problem was, though that was more due to luck than anything else.

He walked past the Tilt-A-Whirl, seeing screaming kids happily whirling around. He wouldn't've even thought twice about it, except, in the next second, the screams wasn't in a, 'the ride is over, we're moving on to the next one' sort of screams ceasing. It was, one second, they were screaming, the next, they weren't. He paused in his step, taking a step back-

To see that the Tilt-A-Whirl was empty, the ride slowing to a stop.

He frowned and walked as close to the ride as he dared without looking suspicious, subtly taking out his sonic-

"I'm sorry, sir, the ride is closed."

He frowned, looking over at the person who appeared to be speaking to him. He looked average, a mop of curly brown hair that sat atop his still teenage head, with a smattering of freckles across his cheeks. He wore a red and white striped uniform like the rest of them, his white shoes spotless as the rest of his uniform.

"It isn't, actually. I just-"

He looked up at the ride, pointing at it to further illustrate his point, when he stopped at what he saw. The ride was completely empty. In fact, it looked broken down, an air of sadness surrounding it like a cloak.

"Hold on, what-" he started.

"I'm afraid it is, sir," he continued, and he looked over to see that he was reaching his hand out, probably, he assumed, to do something like guide him away from the apparently closed ride. "But, I'd be more than happy to-"

"I'm sure you would," he said, acting like he was dismissing him as he walked up to the ride. He pulled out his sonic, taking a scan of the ride to see if he could determine what had just occurred.

He saw movement out of the corner of his eye and he looked over. Parents and teens alike were walking from what appeared to be the exit, a blank expression on their faces. He frowned, turning his full body as he scanned them with the sonic as well.

His frown only deepened as he looked down at the readings. Their brain waves suggested that they all seemed to be in some hypnotic state, unaware of their surroundings but knowing that they were meant to be doing something. The readings from the ride itself were more troubling, however, suggesting that a long-range teleport had been used, in broad daylight, no less.

If he thought about it, there had been something off about the ride, and if he thought about it further, he could recognize the feeling of a perception filter. The only reason he'd even been aware of it was because he'd been so intent on finding something wrong. Well, that, and because he was him, and perception filters were no match for his senses. At least, not most of the time.

His extraordinary senses didn't even get a chance to be extraordinary in the next moment. He felt something like a dart sting his neck and he pulled it from his neck before he laid it flat in his palm, looking at it. A red and white striped dart, complete with an annoying red and white feather at the end of it.

When he whirled around, he stumbled before he managed to stand upright. When he caught sight of the worker ( _Brandon,_ the red and white name tag read), he realized that Brandon was holding a red and white tube that he was putting behind his back.

"Wh-" he started, as his vision blurred and he fell to his hands and knees. "What did you-"

This had to be powerful, if it was already working on him.

It clicked in his mind, then, what must've happened. The carnival was stealing children. Anybody unlucky enough to stumble upon their plan and see through the perception filter was executed on the spot. That's the only way he could explain how this drug was working to knock him out so quickly. Any other species and they'd be dead in under a minute.

He couldn't manage to fight it, though, despite every trick he threw at it. A moment later, he was falling onto his side, cursing how slow he was. Why had he just ignored the worker, Brandon? Why hadn't he started by questioning him more?

He knew why, even if he didn't want to admit it. A millennia spent in the Time War had programmed him to see those creatures in their metal shells as the biggest threat he could've faced. But 'Brandon'? Brandon was a humanoid. That meant, to his still recovering mind, he wasn't a threat. Well, one he didn't need to take that seriously, at any rate.

The point was, he was way too out of practice. That unfortunate fact might've just gotten him killed.

He remembered Anna's comment, then. _The Doctor indeed_ , he thought, as Brandon's face came swimming into view. For a moment, it flickered between the human face and a green humanoid face, four small-ish tentacles actively wiggling on his cheeks.

It was the last thing he saw before he didn't see anything else.

He wondered if that was about to be permanently (of a more permanent variety).

"… in one day? My, my, what a coincidence that is! Or, perhaps, the more likely scenario, you two are working together. Am I getting close?"

"Close to having that cane shoved right up your-"The sound of someone getting hit reached his ears and he was able to more quickly drag himself back from unconsciousness.

When he opened his eyes, the first thing he noted was that he was in a carnival tent, that familiar red and white striped design surrounding him on all sides, hot and stuffy though it was."Now, do you need more reminding about what happens when you disrespect the game master, or can we start playing the game?"

"I'll respect the game master when he stops stealing children."

He was suddenly awake and alive, emotion surging through him when he realized that that was Anna's voice. Despite the dimly lit nature of the tent, he was still able to see her when he looked over.

His blood boiled.

This body was brand new. It wasn't used to this anger. But boy, oh boy, was it about to be.

Her hands and ankles were tied to the chair, and that would've been enough to make him angry. The fact that there was blood at the corner of her lip, a bruise already blooming on her jaw only made him enraged.

It didn't help that the self-proclaimed game master had her chin in his white gloved hand.

"Don't you touch her."

He started to try to work on getting out of the ropes, making it look like a 'struggle' so they wouldn't know that he was as strong as he was-

Hold on, hadn't he thought that he was about to die? Why had they expected him to wake, enough so to tie him up the same as they had tied up Anna? And, if his theory about the 'execution' bit was correct, then why were either of them still alive?

So, no, it wasn't an execution on the spot. Somehow, the darts must've been designed to automatically analyze whatever species' biology they were being used on and automatically release the correct dosage. Smart. It made this a little bit harder, but then again, when wasn't it?

(Truth be told, he'd normally be loving this. A new adventure, an evil to thwart. The only reason that he didn't was because Anna was being hurt, and he was entirely too upset about that. Ten minutes into his first adventure back and his companion (his hearts filled with happiness at the thought, taking on companions again) was already getting hurt? How rusty he'd become was showing, and that was entirely unacceptable).

"Ah, what a fortunate time for your partner to wake up! Just in time for you two to play the game as true partners."

"Play what?"

"The usual bull-"

The idiot thought it was a good idea to hit her. _Again_.

"Now, now, what have I said about disrespecting the game master? Especially when he holds all the cards?"

But he didn't.

It hit the Doctor then, all at once, that this 'game master' didn't hold any of the cards. Anna could've easily gotten them out of this situation. She could've even stopped him from hitting her. But, she wasn't. It only took him a moment to realize why.

Information.

She was trying to procure information from the white and red striped, top hat, cane wielding and suit wearing game master.

But why? If she was a being of incredible power as she'd proclaimed, as he'd seen her more than prove, then why wasn't she simply forcing him to tell her the information?

She was giving him the power of choice.

It floored him to realize this. If she just took away his power and made him tell her what his ultimate plan was, or just stopping him altogether, that was taking away the choice from him to do what was had incredible power and instead of exercising it over the 'lower beings', she was allowing him the option of free will.

Despite the fact that now he knew he could sit back and relax to watch how all of this played out, he knew he had to keep up the front. This supposed game master (and was that really what he was calling himself?) had to think that he really did hold all the cards.

Well, it wasn't that hard to keep up the charade when he once again spotted the line of blood that was tracing from the corner of her lip to her jaw. He started to struggle harder against the ropes that held him, that anger still burning deeply within him.

"I already told you," she bit out, anger crossing her features. "I'll respect the game master when he quits _stealing. Children."_

The game master had the audacity to laugh, taking a step back from her as he whirled around. "You talk as if this is personal. My dear, it is simply business."

"And what business might that be?" he asked, wanting to get his attention on himself instead of on Anna, so that he could be the one getting hit instead of her. Being of incredible power or no, he hated to see anybody hurt, especially at the hands of some bloke calling himself 'the Game Master'.

"Have you really not gathered what that might be?" he asked, twirling his cane.

"I'm stupid," he replied, as deadpan as he could make it sound.

He laughed, pointing at him as he took three steps towards him. "Playing the part of the fool, perhaps." He stopped, placing his cane down in front of him, putting one hand on top of the other. "But neither of you are as stupid as those other patrons outside. Now, shall we start the game? I'm very eager, you see."

"You mean besides the game where you steal children? For what reason, might I ask, oh great and wonderful game master?" he asked, sarcastically, still trying to get out of the ropes.

"Ah, you see my dear? Somebody who knows how to show respect to the person in charge!" he said. Before the Doctor could interject with how sarcasm worked, the game master spoke. "For that, I shall answer your question."

It definitely wasn't because he was a showman and wanted to show-off to an audience, willing or not.

"Myself and my workers are from a little known planet called Sustrai. It is a unique little planet in that the core of the planet runs off of a very specific type of energy. Not long ago, it was discovered that the energy was running low, and our little planet began to die. Unwilling to let that happen, we were sent on a mission to uncover a new energy source. Earth was quickly discovered, and even quicker still was the fact that human children had energy that was unprecedented. Fifty children a year was all that it took for our little planet to thrive. Thus, we set up shop, and the carnival was born. There's hardly any clean up involved. Human minds are so… dim. They hardly notice what's right in front of them, and what's more, are willing to walk into the trap that we've designed for them. Show them a ride and they're more than willing to throw their children on, ripe for the taking. The parents, whilst awaiting for their children, are sat in a little area, where their minds are then wiped of the day's events, forgetting that they've ever been to the carnival. Of course, even they aren't so unobservant as to not notice that their child is suddenly missing, but there are no clues and no way to retrace their steps. This pre-technology era is perfect for this little game, and all the while, my planet continues to thrive, with the children converted to pure energy to continue powering the planet for ages to come."

Rage sat between his hearts, but he sat back, grinding his teeth as he tried to get it under control.

Before he had a chance to do so much as utter a word, the game master and his lackeys (who were all dressed in that utterly annoying white and red striped pattern) had disappeared before his eyes.

He frowned, looking around, to see that Anna was standing up, dusting herself off.

"Well. That was fun," she said.

Uncertainty started to needle it's way into his hearts, before it settled, almost automatically. If she hadn't killed those pepper pots machines, which had waged the biggest war in all of creation, he very much doubted she'd start with some 'game master'. Even if he did steal and convert children into pure energy.

More relaxed, he asked, "What did you do?"

"Something clever," she told him, dancing over to him. She kneeled down next to him, manually untying his hands as she spoke. "I simply changed it so that they found a different source of energy, one that didn't involve stealing or sacrificing children."

Oh, no. No, no, _no_.

"You did what?"

He felt everything falling out of him. Anna had just changed the entire history of a race in the blink of an eye, and she didn't seem to understand that that wasn't a good thing.

A welcome distraction came to him when he realized the other problem with this horrifying scenario."Hold on," he said, and she raised her eyebrows, looking up at him inquisitively. He noted that her eyes had more of a hazel hue in the dim lighting of the carnival tent. "If they never needed another energy source, then the… game master never would've come here to steal the children. So, why's the carnival still standing?"

Everything was thrown into complete chaos.

It was that simple. One second, Anna was untying him, the next, he was falling to the ground. Time was shifting uncomfortably in his chest, but he still managed to prop himself up on his elbows to see what was hitting his legs like that.

It turned out to be Anna. She was writhing on the ground in front of him, and he immediately moved so that he was sitting above her (though he peripherally noticed that the tent had disappeared… and so had the rest of the carnival around them, leaving a barren and empty field around them, the day grayer than he remembered. Maybe it was more than peripheral, but Anna had started screaming in what appeared to be pain).

He immediately took out his sonic, scanning her to see if he could figure out what was causing this. A moment later, he saw movement out of the corner of his eye and he looked around to see that the carnival was blinking in and out of existence around them, children and parents walking about the carnival and enjoying the rides and games one moment and then not the next.

"No, no, no-!" she screamed.

Suddenly, the carnival was stable around them once more. Time shifted again, back into place the way that it had been, and he had to wonder if that included the game master and his plot. At least Anna seemed to have settled beneath him, though she was breathing rapidly, her arms over her head.

"Anna, hey, can you hear me?" he asked.

"That was-" she started. Her arm slid from her face, revealing the wide eyed, tear stained state that her face had taken on. "-the meanest thing you have ever done to me."

Confusion of a different kind settled next to the confusion that was already there, worry and calculation present as well.

"What-"

He didn't get a chance to finish his sentence asking her what it was that he'd done to her. She interrupted him, calling him a curse word in German, and in the next moment, she was no longer beside him, his hands falling through open air to the grass Anna had occupied not moments ago.

He stood, whirling on his heel, taking out his sonic as he started to scan the area for any signatures that might be about to take him as well.

He spotted her standing in the grass about two meters away. Shockingly enough, she looked fairly sheepish, and he frowned, and not just at the sight of the blood that was still trailing down from the corner of her lip to her jaw.

"Hello," she said, raising her hand up before she replaced it behind her back, clasping it together with the other one. She'd changed once more, this time into a brown and green dress dotted with millions of flowers twisting around themselves. Her hair was suddenly shorter as it barely brushed her shoulders, which were bare save for the thin straps that held the dress itself up.

"So… That was a thing," she said.

He raised his eyebrows. "Mind catching me up on what that 'thing' might be?"

Her smile grew to be more sheepish. "I, um… Would it be all right if we talked in the Tardis?"

At the mention of them talking in the Tardis, the memory of what had happened bled through. He crossed his arms over his chest, his eyes narrowing.

"You said you made it so that they found a different power source-"

Her eyes widened and she held up her hands. "Ah, ha ha, okay, seriously, I'd really rather not discuss all of my… actions out in the open like this. Can we head back to the Tardis? Please?"

He shrugged. "What's it matter?" he asked, crossing his arms.

She pointed to her ear with one hand while still holding out the other one. "Prying ears, and all," she said, and he frowned deeper, glancing around.

"Who exactly do you think is listening?" he asked her, looking back at her in the meantime. "And why should that matter, anyway? Can't you just, I don't know, erase their whole history with a snap of your fingers?"

Saving Gallifrey and the rest of the universe was one thing; it would've ended, one way or another. What she'd done was simply create a more perfect solution. But what she'd done here? She'd changed time on a monumental scale, changing the lives of inhabitants and the whole history of a society. They'd made the choice to use children as energy, and although there wasn't a strong enough word to describe how much he disliked that, it didn't mean that he had anymore right to head back into their history and simply change it the way she'd done. Children who hadn't been alive before were, now. Children who would grow up and possibly create major ripples in time.

It wasn't a small thing, what she'd done, and he searched her, waiting for her answer.

(There was a small part of him (though it was more than small, if he allowed himself to think about it (which he currently wasn't)) that realized his hearts were falling in his chest. He was disappointed to realize that she was just like every other being with incredible power, doing whatever it was that they wanted at the cost of the rest of the universe. He hadn't realized how hard he'd fallen for the idea that there was a being, just once, with incredible power like hers that wouldn't be a general nuisance to the universe. No part of him wanted to think about it, and he was putting it off, but his mind was starting to run through all the ways that he could stop her or, at the very least, deter her from these actions ever again. Even if that small part of him felt a soul crushing disappointment at the thought that he wouldn't get to spend the time with Anna that he thought he would. His whole life was once again changing, and although he was used to it, it was no less disappointing than any of the other times it had before.)

Anna's look, meanwhile, had changed. Drastically. She narrowed her eyes at him, standing up straighter. The sheepish expression she'd been looking at him with before had disappeared completely from her face. He was sorely disheartened to realize that there was a challenge in her eyes.

"Which means what, exactly?" she asked him.

Never one to back down from a challenge, he stood up taller. "Exactly what it says on the tin," he told her, clasping his hands behind his back. His hearts began to harden, because they were trained to and because they must, because Anna wasn't the person he'd thought she was. "You changed Sustrai's history in the blink of an eye, without thinking about the consequences."

She raised her eyebrows, a smile of all things slithering it's way onto her face. "Oh really? _I_ didn't think about the consequences at all? Me? The woman who _literally_ ran through all the reasons she couldn't stop the biggest war in creation _because_ of the consequences, and instead, chose to end it the moment that I did?"

He felt his hearts harden further at that. "What _exactly_ does that have to do with _anything_ , Anna?"

"If I didn't stop the _biggest_ war in creation because of the consequences, why the _hell_ would I do that for fifty children, fifty families, a year?"

Realization rolled through him, but before he had a chance to comment, or ask any questions, he had the entirely separate realization that she was angry. She continued speaking before he had a chance to.

"Besides which, I don't understand how you can justify what it was that I did for you if fully believe everything that you just said, about how decisions can change a person. I made it possible for you not to use The Moment, so how-"

She was angry, but now, he was too, anger cresting through his chest so fiercely that it stole his breath for a single moment (even if there was still blood dripping down her face, which signified that he'd let her be hurt). How _dare_ she bring _that_ all of things up so glibly, as if she were speaking about the weather instead of one of _the_ hardest choices of his nine hundred years of life (or thereabouts, anyway)?

"That's entirely different, Anna, and if you don't understand that then you're even stupider than I thought."

He hadn't wanted to call her stupid. He'd wanted to call her ignorant, irresponsible, unkind, controlling, manipulative, or any other number of things that his time lord brain had popped up with in the span of a second. But, what had come out of his mouth was stupid.

Her eyes widened and she threw her hands up in the air. "Oh, ho, ho! Explain it to me, then, explain to the stupid ape how-"

(Stupid ape?)

"-what deed I've committed wrong, explain it to me- and best use tiny words, because apparently, I'm stupid!"

She thought _she_ was angry?

"Because I never would've done, Anna!" he shouted at her. "That's how it's different, because I never would've actually gone through with it, whereas they. Did. They decided and went through with converting children into nothing more than a resource!"

He couldn't believe he was shouting like this. He couldn't remember the last time he'd gotten this close to someone or something and gotten this furious with them this fast.

Part of him fully expected her to smite him and the other part wanted to let her. He didn't understand how he'd been so blind to what stood before him now, just another creature who thought she knew better than the rest of the universe about how it should turn.

She didn't seem to be smiting, though. Surprisingly, she seemed to be shifting down, searching him. After a moment, her eyes narrowed, but it was in consideration, not anger.

After another moment, she spoke.

"Okay, but it's like I _just_ said. If I didn't _end_ the biggestwar in creation before it began _because_ of the consequences, why would I do that for fifty children a year?"

He opened his mouth-

Before he closed it.

"… Oh," he said. He frowned. "So, if you didn't create total chaos to the fabric of the universe by doing that… How _didn't_ you create total chaos to the fabric of the universe by saving them?"

She put her hands behind her back, talking to him more levelly, now. "The planet at large had no idea what had saved the planet. Government was very vague about it, you see, and really, who questions something that good when they don't have to? They never ended up finding out, which meant that their lives weren't changed at all by not having the planet powered by the energy harvested from supernovas and not the energy of fifty children a year. As for the Sustraian's who decided to harvest fifty children a year, they still made a terrible decision that resulted in the same, but just as equally awful, character flaw within them, including the game master-"

"And that would be?"

She looked up and away, running her tongue over her teeth, before she shook her head, shrugging.

"I don't know," she said, looking back towards him. "But the energy is the same. They'll still-"

"How do you know that?" he asked her.

She laughed, a hint of incredulousness resting on her face. "How do I know anything?"

"How _do_ you know anything? How can you do the incredible things that you do? You never said and I never asked, but I'm asking you now, Anna. What are you?"

She raised her eyebrows. She searched him.

"I'm not answering that question," she told him, after a moment, and he raised his eyebrows, crossing his arms. "But I can tell you that I'm not a danger to the universe. I'm not a threat-"

"What you've just done here has demonstrated otherwise. You've more than proven to me that you can't handle the power that you possess-"

Her eyes widened in anger. "You don't get to decide that, Doctor!"

"And _you_ don't get to decide you'll change how the universe turns simply because you don't like it. People die Anna. It's sad and it's awful, especially when it's children, but you don't get to change that fundamental truth of the universe because you think you know better than anyone else."

She searched him, anger in spades resting in her eyes.

Something else ran through her eyes. An understanding. A single spark of hope nestled into his chest before he pushed it away, unable to handle the disappointment that he would inevitably feel when she told him that she didn't understand and would do whatever she wanted, whenever she wanted, simply because she felt she had the power and the means to do so.

She held up her hands. "I'm sorry," she said. "You don't know me, and you're used to seeing beings with incredible power mess with the lives of people with no regard as to what their lives should look like. I understand-"

"You obviously don't, or you wouldn't be standing there, about to tell me that you're different, that you know better, that you're somehow a more perfect version of what you've just described, cause you're not, Anna, you're not different, you're just the same disappointing 'incredible' being as all the others. I am so sick and tired of seeing people with power, like you, decide what's best for the universe, because they have a bit of power. Power doesn't make you better than anybody else. It just makes you blind."

He looked at her, some of the heartsbreak he was feeling leaking through the surface.

"Anna, you could've been so much. _We_ could've-"

He stopped, looking away as he ground his teeth so hard his jaw hurt.

Decision hardened him. His face set and his eyes hard, he looked up at Anna. A flash of a memory ran through him, about how they'd been in different positions not half an hour prior. He'd thought she was sending him to an alternate dimension, to punish him. Now, although it wouldn't be to punish her, he might have to do the same.

"I'm assuming you have the power to change it back," he said, quietly.

There were scores of hurt resting in her eyes, but he was way beyond caring (even if there was some tiny part of him that was hurting to see her so hurt).

She swallowed, before she nodded. "Yea-" she started, rubbing her forehead as she looked away, down at a spot on the grass. She was rocking gently back and her forth, her dress once again changed, this time so that it rolled past her ankles, covering everything except for her toes. She frowned, clearing her throat. "Yeah," she said, though it was quieter than when she'd originally spoken.

"Then do," he said. "After you've done, I never want to see you again, and if I do, I can promise a much less friendly encounter than this one."

(She saved Gallifrey, she saved Gallifrey, she'd saved him from centuries of heartache and pain and misery, didn't that mean she deserved a bit of credit, a bit of leeway, a bit of something from him besides this cold heartless creature that stood before her now-

He told that part of his mind to shunt off, searching her with that hard look in his eye).

He'd been wrong about the scores of hurt in her eyes. To say she simply looked _hurt_ was an understatement. She looked like he'd broken a very fundamental part of her, but was struggling to keep the pieces together, despite the fact that they'd already shattered.

She held up her hands. "I'm not-" she started, her voice logged down by the tears that were in her eyes. The blood finally disappeared from her face (and some part of him was deeply relieved at that, before the relief converted into more anger) and she cleared her throat. "I'm not telling you that I won't. I'm just asking you to give me a chance to show you-"

"You-" he started, about to tell her that she'd had a chance to not do this at all.

"Doctor, please," she said, and the way that she pleaded with him, saying his name, reminded him of what she'd said earlier.

 _Considering you're The Doctor, and all_.

Never cruel or cowardly. Never give up, never give in.

That was what his name meant, what the promise was. Yet, right now, he found himself doing all of those things, being cruel and cowardly to her, giving up the idea that Anna could be anything but what he'd grown so tired of, and giving in to his anger.

Still, he barely softened as he searched her, though his face didn't soften even a fraction of an inch.

"A chance to show me what?" he asked her.

"That I haven't changed the universe at all by doing this," she told him. There was a pleading look in her eyes that matched her tone.

She was desperate, he realized, with a shock. Why? Why would she be desperate? Desperate for what? To fix the situation? But why? What did it matter to her if the situation was fixed? Why was she still hanging about at all? She could've disappeared into the ether by now (though it was good that she hadn't. He would've hated to track her down, to force her to fix what she'd done. He played it out in his mind, realizing that it would've been much worse than that. If he'd not been able to track her down, he would've had to've been the one to fix time, which meant that he would've had to've lead the Sustraian's to Earth, somehow, someway, so that they could continue stealing children for energy).

Newfound anger shot through him and he stood up taller, crossing his arms over his chest.

"No," he told her. He wasn't willing to risk that she was about to shunt off and leave him to clean up her mess. He absolutely refused (stop it. Stop it. _Stop it_ , his mind ordered him, anger at himself welling up that he was being so cruel. He didn't care. He'd just come off of the biggest War in creation. He'd nearly been responsible for killing his own kind. He wasn't about to risk that he would have to have a hand in killing children. That wasn't happening). "Fix it. Now."

She searched him and, for a moment, she looked so lost. It tugged at his hearts, making him soften for a single moment as he searched her. He recognized that feeling. He knew what it was like, to feel that lost and afraid and so desperately alone.

It was why, when the screen appeared in front of her, blocking her from view, he didn't automatically object.

It appeared to be a movie of some kind. There was a spaceship, floating through space. He watched as it appeared at a supernova, fast forwarding to them harvesting the energy. He raised his eyebrows, watching the screen as people who looked like Brandon (or Brandon's true form, anyway) stood in front of a screen.

"You've done good work here today," someone he assumed was a government official said (because what Anna'd said, but also because, honestly, when wasn't it?). "But we need to be absolutely certain that this won't happen again. Collect energy via those means, but continue the search," he said.

He raised his eyebrows listlessly, watching as they eventually found their way to Earth, as they set up shop, doing the carnival-

"If they're still doing the carnival," he started, "then what's the point?"

The screen showed the game master in all his white and red pinstriped glory, entertaining children, whilst Anna spoke from behind the screen, allowing it to block his view of her.

"Some of the children had to die. But, not all of them. They'll only ever end up taking the ones that need to be taken, to keep time flowing as it should."

"What do you know about time?"

The screen disappeared, to show a defeated looking Anna. Her hands were clasped behind her back. She was now wearing a purple sweater and trousers, wearing high-top shoes. She was also wearing a haunted look that he recognized all too well.

"What don't I know about time?"

It was such a stark difference from when she'd asked the question before. She'd been smiling and laughing, then. Now, she just looked defeated.

"I don't just do these things on a whim, Doctor, and maybe you believe that because it looked like two seconds to you. But I promise you, I would never do something that would compromise the universe in the way that you're talking about."

Information connected in a way that it hadn't before, and he searched her.

"But you already have," he realized. "That television show that you were talking about. That was a possible future, and you just erased that with a snap of your fingers. How does that not disrupt the fabric of the universe in the way that you were talking about? A whole planet exists now that didn't before, and me?" he asked, and he searched her. "Why did you do this, Anna? Why do any of it?"

She looked away from him, tears spilling down her cheeks. She opened and closed her mouth before she shook her head.

"Do you want me to-" she closed her eyes, looking up and away, before she looked back to the left of herself. Finally, she looked back at him. "Do you want me to change it back? The carnival?"

"No," he said, surprising himself when he realized what he'd said.

It all came crashing down around him, then, what had happened, what he'd said, what he'd done. Guilt came crashing down on him as hard as a physical thing weighing him down, and he spoke.

"Anna, wait-"

"Do you-"

They'd started speaking at the same time, but she spoke over him.

"Do you want me to change back what I did? With you? With Gallifrey? All of it?"

Horror filled his chest, joining the rocks to weigh him down further. "What?" he asked, weakly.

Her words got harder. "Do you want me to change it back to the way that the television show said it should be?"

"Anna, no, I'm-"

He started for her, taking two steps before she held her hands up, flinching two steps back from him.

He felt like he'd been physically burned, the fire from before back, but not in a pleasant way. Every part of him ached.

"Anna," he started.

He watched as she folded in on herself, her shoulders rounding out, her attire once again changing. She wore blue jeans and a black long sleeved shirt with black ballet flats, marking a stark contrast against the tops of her pale feet.

"Then I will skedaddle."

"Anna, wait, no, I'm-"

He felt every part of him fall apart as she disappeared from his view.

"Damn it!" he shouted.

This wouldn't be the end of them. He'd made a mistake, one that was a product of his war torn mind. He would apologize to her, make her see that. But first, he had to find her.

A determination filled him. He would fix this. He had to. He absolutely had to. This was Anna, the woman who'd saved him and countless others from centuries worth of suffering-

He realized how much more of an idiot he was when he realized she'd also saved all of those kids. How many kids had she saved, he wondered? How many of them would get to be with their families, grow up and have families of their own, or whatever other future that they wanted?

He would fix this, and that would start by getting back to the Tardis, to track her down through whatever means necessary.

He made it back to the Tardis in record time, actually relieved that it was still where it had been. He hadn't even considered the possibility that it might've been moved in all of the chaos.

He threw himself into the console room, but he made it three steps up the grating before he realized that there was a person sitting in the jumpseat.

"Hello," he said, for lack of knowing what else to say.

He'd no idea how-

"Anna." Her name dropped from his lips in a whisper.

Her hair was pulled up into a tight bun, making the angles on her face sharper, but when he saw her shoes, he knew for certain that it was her. She was still wearing the same outfit she had not moments ago.

"Anna, I'm-" he started.

One leg was folded under the other, her other leg hanging down as it swung listlessly back and forth.

"I was emotionally abused," she told him, her words clunky. "For a very long time. So you can't fight with me like that. If you are angry with me, you cannot yell at me in that manner. You have to speak in a calmer tone, and if you do not, then I will assume that you are like the person that hurt me. I don't want to ever assume that you are like the person that hurt me, because I know that you are not," here, her words became less clunky, running together in a more normal sentence structure and rhythm, "and I know that you have PTSD and expressing yourself like that might be the norm for a while," she finally looked up at him and shook her head. "But you can't express yourself like that with me. Not ever again. Are we clear?"

This new piece of the puzzle wasn't fitting with the picture he already had of her. How could it be possible that a person with the power that she possessed-

He leaned back, realization running through him, guilt cascading through him in the same measure.

She gave people a choice. Maybe she'd given the wrong person a choice for too long, and now, she was damaged in a way that even she didn't know how to fix.

His brilliant mind ran through everything he'd said to her in the blink of an eye, and the guilt weighed on him so heavily he was surprised he didn't collapse under the weight of it.

"Anna…" he started, quietly.

She raised her eyebrows, fear tucking itself into the corner of her eyes. "Are we clear?" she repeated, and it looked like she was blinking away tears.

"Yes, yes, we're clear," he reassured her, and he hated himself all the more when relief of all things ran through her eyes. "I swear, we are, and I am… I can't express to you how sorry I am, for everything that I said and how I acted- I acted like a total- there isn't even a word to describe how badly I acted just then, and I am so, so sorry for that."

"No, I-I understand," she told him. "After everything that you've been through-"

"Doesn't excuse anything that I just said or did. You literally saved my planet from being in a pocket universe for who knows how long, possibly never to be seen again. That fact alone should've given you some credit with me, and I've no idea why it didn't, but that aside, the way that I treated you was not 'all right'. My having PTSD-" which was the simplest, human version of what he had, but he wasn't about to explain the intricacies of how PTSD was affected when involving the time disruptions he'd suffered. "-doesn't excuse my yelling at you and calling you- Anna, I'm sorry," he tried to emphasize. "Really, I am, and I will keep saying it until you believe it, and until you know that my behavior was in no way acceptable. Are we clear about that?" he asked her, parroting back her words.

Relief filled him like a tidal wave when he saw the barest hints of a smile lighting up her face.

"Yes, we're clear," she said, though she wasn't looking at him, looking down and to the right of herself. She was standing now, her hands in her trouser pockets.

She worried her bottom lip, furrowing her brow, before she looked up at him, an earnestness resting about herself.

"I want you to know that I'm not just saying this because I've been taught that if I don't, I'll be punished in horribly emotionally abusive ways. I'm saying it because I mean it. I forgive you, from the bottom of my heart, because you are deserving of forgiveness-" at that, his jaw set and this time, he was the one looking down and away, his hands in his jacket pockets. He heard her start to creep to him and it took everything in him not to step back. "-and because one fight an end of a friendship does not make."She cupped his face in her hands, gently bringing his face towards hers. "I want you to know that you are nothing like the person who hurt me. The only reason that I told you that is because… Well, because I trust you, and because it's important that you know I've been emotionally abused."

She searched his eyes as she gently caressed his cheeks with her thumbs.

"But I promise, I know that you're nothing like them, and we're okay. I promise, we're okay."

He was horrified to realize that there was tears in his eyes. Instead of wiping them away, he pulled Anna into a hug, clutching onto her as emotions he hadn't allowed himself to feel in a millennia tumbled through him and out of him.

"Thank you," he whispered.

"Always," she promised him, and he believed her with all of his hearts.


	3. The Invisible Woman on the Hearth

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: Edit 8/19- Chapters four thru six have been combined. Some stuff has changed, so if it's a tiny bit different than you remember, that's why.  
> Also, to my new readers, this one doesn't have much adventure in it, but it is important to the story, so enjoy!  
> Chapter title based on two separate books: "The Invisible Man" and "Cricket on the Hearth". This is due to the fact that I combined three chapters (though "The Floating City of the Mind did not get mixed in with other chapters).  
> I still don't own Doctor Who.

Holding her like he was, he knew the truth. He was falling in love with her.

He nearly startled away from her at that notion. Falling in love? How could he possibly think that he was falling in love? He'd known her for, what, eight hours? That aside, after everything he'd been through, after everything he'd seen, how could he even think he was still capable-?

No, he decided, then and there. That wasn't happening. Not today. Not now.

He smiled a manic grin.

"What do you say?" he asked, and he grabbed her hands on his face, gently pulling them off. "Floating city?"

She smiled. "Sounds good to me."

#####

"Oh, bollocks."

Maybe it didn't exist, he thought, staring out at the amusement park crowd. Maybe it had been displaced in time and space. Maybe another ne'er-do-well time traveler had come along and wiped it off the map-

"No way!"

He frowned, looking down at Anna. She'd squealed. She'd literally, and actually, squealed.

"It's an amusement park," he said, confused that she could get so excited over something so simple, even if she'd shown the same excitement over a simple meadow about three minutes prior (which they'd landed at twice, which was why he was sure some ne'er-do-well time traveler had come along and wiped it off the map). "Like the carnival that you didn't like, remember?"

She gasped dramatically, whirling back to look at him because she'd taken three steps out of the Tardis in her confusing excitement.

"This is not the carnival!" she said, pointing back towards the amusement park, rollercoasters and screaming abound. "This is Knott's Berry Farm!" Excitement crowded her face, and she bounced on her heels, suddenly wearing jean capris and a white tank top, her feet now clad in comfortable walking shoes. "Ooh, I haven't been here in ages, come on!"

She walked up to him, grabbing his hand and pulling him along.

He quickly grabbed the door handle and pulled it closed behind him. It was a good thing, too. She hadn't even paused and instead, pulled him along faster, acting like a giddy schoolgirl.

Despite her apparent excitement, she still seemed to think it was necessary to stop behind the group of people what seemed to be lining up behind the kiosks.

"What're we doing?"

"Standing in line," she told him, as if it was the most obvious thing in the world. In spite of himself, he found his hearts softening at the fact that she looked so happy.

"Why're we doing that?"

"I don't know about you, but where I'm from, we buy tickets before we enter establishments."

"Well, where _I'm_ from," he said, before he pulled out the psychic, showing it to her, "we don't stand in lines."

She frowned, genuinely looking confused. "You plan on showing them a blank piece of paper and just charming your way in? Which, to be honest, I've no doubt you can do."

He rolled his eyes, ignoring the compliment. "Oh, don't go pretending that you don't know what psychic paper is." He stowed it in his jacket before he grabbed her hand, about to pull her away.

She didn't budge, and he looked back at her.

"Oh, the psychic! The psychic, yeah, haha," she said, genuinely laughing a little, as if she were pleased with herself. Her expression looked like she were reminiscing about something before she spoke, looking over at him. "Yeah, we're not doing that," she said, in no uncertain terms.

"Because…?"

She shot him a deadpan look. "How is the park ever supposed to make money if people just _sneak in?"_ she asked, her tone lowered on the last two words.

He lowered himself down a little bit, speaking in the same quiet tone. "It's two people. I doubt they'll notice." Once again, he started to pull her away.

Once again, she didn't.

"-and if everybody took sticks from the forest, there wouldn't be any trees left. We aren't sneaking in."

She appeared to be as immovable as a statue. He frowned as he searched her, but at this, he did cave.

"Fine. Do we have to stand in line, though?"

"Actually… depends on the year we landed in."

They were standing under the awning of the row of buildings that lead to the park itself about a minute later. People were walking past, excited and happily chatting, a few children running past. He heard a parent calling out, "Wendy, Parker, slow down!" He caught sight of them and, out of habit, he kept an eye on them until he saw their guardian catching up to them. He looked back down at Anna, realizing what was bothering him about his situation. "Where're you getting the money from?"

She paused, her hand hovering over the 'checkout' button. "Come again?" she asked.

"You know, the money to buy the tickets you're currently purchasing." He pointed at the phone she held in her hands.

She raised her eyebrows. "Oh, you know, I was just… thinking…"

He raised his own eyebrows. "That you could make it appear out of thin air? Thereby creating money that wasn't there before, injecting money into an already fragile economy?" He laughed a little, delighted. "That's so much worse than the psychic."

He wasn't laughing for long, frowning at the look on Anna's face. She was dejected and disappointed, looking at the gates with longing.

"Anna?" he asked. "What it is?"

She sighed, grabbing his hand as she pocketed the phone she'd made appear from thin air. "Come on," she said, pulling him along.

Her disappointment and longing were as palpable as her excitement had been, even as she pulled him towards the gates-

No, hang about, she was pulling him back to the Tardis.

"Anna, what're you doing? We can just use the psychic to get in, it's not a big deal."

She heaved out another sigh before she stopped in place. "We're not supposed to use it."

"How'd you mean?"

"I mean that we aren't supposed to use the psychic to get in."

He frowned. "Why not?"

She shrugged. "Dunno. Alls I know is that I'm getting the feeling we shouldn't use it. Like how I felt that something was wrong, at the carnival? Do you remember that?" she asked, looking up at him.

The hairs on the back of his neck stood on end at the mention of the carnival (and the fight) they'd left behind.

"Are you saying there's something wrong here as well?" The park losing two people's worth of revenue be damned. If that were the case, they were getting in if they had to pose as park management to do it (which, in his experience, wasn't the best way to do it. Health and safety was usually his best bet. Nobody questioned the inspector, for fear of the inspector's wrath).

Her eyes barely widened. "No, no, it's nothing-it's nothing like that," she said, and she furrowed her brow before she looked away, biting her lip ( _don't even think about it_ , he ordered himself, unknowingly echoing the exact same command at the exact same action. He had to remain focused. She was saying something was wrong. … Wasn't she?). "My…" she let out a sigh through her nose before her words became clunky once more. "One of the things that I can do is receive feelings about how things are supposed to go down. We are not supposed to enter the park via the psychic," and here, her words once again became more rhythmic and natural, no longer clunky. "just like I knew that there was something wrong at the carnival."

"What're you saying, exactly?"

"I'm saying that if we enter the amusement park via the psychic, something'll happen that…" she looked up, her eyes squinting against the glare. "It's not that it's not supposed to happen, or even that it shouldn't. It just makes things… more difficult?"

He crossed his arms as he patiently asked, "Do we need to be in the park?"

"Well, I mean, no," she told him. "It's just, if we do enter the park, it can't be via the psychic-" she frowned, a look of distaste crossing her face. "Though, apparently, it's okay for us to sneak in through the back? Ooh, I've an idea."

#####

"How is this better?"

They were entering through the exit gate that also doubled as a re-enter gate. She'd waved her hand over the back of his hand and, voila, there appeared a stamp that matched the other patrons who were re-entering the park.

"We still haven't paid-"

"Shut up," she said, and he raised his eyebrows, giving her a look. She did a double take. "Okay, sorry, fine, but apparently the problem wasn't that we weren't paying, it was-"

"You mean you don't have a problem taking sticks out of forests, or some such nonsense?"

"Oh, no, that I do have a problem with," she corrected him. "Apparently, I don't have a problem with your _steal bits of money here and there cause no one'll notice and sneak into amusement parks whenever I want just because I have the psychic_ lifestyle."

"Really? Because I'm sensing a little judgement on your part."

"No, you're sensing my teasing. Huge difference. Come on," she said, grabbing his hand and pulling him along.

"Speaking of huge differences," he said, ignoring the annoying way his hearts jumped in his chest when she grabbed his hand (despite the fact that it had to be the tenth time that day- nay, that _hour_ that she'd done so). "How is this different than using the psychic?"

"Well," she said, as they were about three meters from the turnstile, "we're about to find out. Hello!" she cheerily told the attendant.

He rolled his eyes at that (though he was secretly pleased at the fact that their hands were still linked, no matter how much he was telling himself that he should drop her hand once more).

By the time they'd made it into the bustling park proper, he still hadn't. He let himself be guided among the happy tourists and the happy patrons and the mildly sick looking ones who were sitting against the wall, being consoled by their friend who looked impatient by the fact that this was eating into their amusement park time.

"I still don't understand."

"Welcome to my world!" she declared, sounding almost frustrated, and he wasn't sure if she meant the amusement park or the fact that she didn't understand, either. Judging by her tone, she meant the latter. "Look, it doesn't matter," she said, walking backwards as she held his hand, still dragging him along. "We're in Knott's freaking Berry Farm, which, yes, I will grant you is much less exciting than Six Flags, but I'll tell you what," she said, and he realized that her excitement was bleeding through to his hand, once again a palpable thing between them. He couldn't help but smile at that. "Knott's Berry Farm has got a train. An actual train that you can ride around. Does Six Flags have that? I think not," she told him, with the tone to match. "Now, come on. Days a wasting."

#####

In the end, there were no life-threatening events. All the children and adults and park staff were safe and happy, running about in delight at the fact that they were there to enjoy the day.

Even he found himself relaxing, enjoying the time he got to spend with Anna without worrying about some universe ending threat.

That was life with the Doctor, sometimes. It wasn't always about running from the latest deadly danger (though even he would begrudgingly admit that that's what it was about some of the time). Sometimes, it was just about enjoying the day spent with good company, to create memories that they could look back on fondly. Sometimes, that's all that he needed. Just a simple memory to remind him what a joy it was to be alive.

#####

"As fun as this has been, I need to turn in."

He frowned, searching her, some of his smile being lost.

"Which means what, exactly?"

"It means that I have waited two weeks for you to get some sleep, and I'm finally calling it. Time of sleep: Whatever time it is in the vortex right now. Which time doesn't actually exist here, so…"

She giggled, but he had to push the unease at the thought of 'time of death' from his mind.

They'd been traveling together for a bit of time, now (which was apparently two of Earth's weeks). Traveling with her had been a whirlwind, a new experience he'd happily focused on to happily ignore the feelings sitting in his gut.

One way he'd distracted himself from that warm feeling in his chest was by throwing them into the deep end. They'd mostly been sightseeing, making friends with the locals. There hadn't been much running, truth be told, nor had there been anything much out of place that would indicate that there was some deadly danger just around the corner. It wasn't that he didn't look (because some days he found himself actively looking through archives to see if he could spot something out of place). It was just that there weren't much trouble to be found as of late.

That didn't stop them from having fun, though. Anna seemed thrilled to be traveling, and there was always a wondrous look in her eye whenever he first opened the doors. He'd had the realization a bit of a ways back that she must've been doing it to humor him, acting like she'd never seen the things he was showing her. The impossible things that she could do, and she was excited about a waterfall?

Well, either that, or she was just extremely appreciative of life and everything that it had to offer.

He had to stick with the former, so that the latter didn't niggle it's way into his hearts and give him an excuse to do something incredibly hadn't done, and so, it had been a blissful two weeks, filled with laughter and joy of a kind he hadn't experienced in millennia (and a bit longer than that, he thought about it hard enough. Which, he didn't).

But now, she was saying that she wanted to hit pause so that she could get a bit of sleep?

(He'd be lying if he said he didn't feel the fatigue creeping into his bones. He'd just gotten very good at learning how to ignore it (especially considering the dreams he was no doubt sure were waiting for him (which he also pointedly ignored (ignoring any thoughts of that nature))).

"Hold on, you _sleep?"_

"Well, I _eat,"_ she said, in the same tone, though it was slurred, almost drunken in it's own way. "Might as well throw sleep in the mix." She 'threw' it, before using an imaginary bat to bat at the metaphorical 'sleep'. He raised his eyebrows as she laughed at her own antics, before she cleared her throat. "Yeah, I've-I've definitely to get some sleep." She pointed back to the place where the wall slid up to reveal the hallway that led to the rest of the rooms. "Is there a room for me somewhere in there?"

"You don't have to eat," he pointed out, ignoring her question because the answer should've been obvious. "Why'd you have to sleep?"

She started to stagger backwards. "Just as a human does not have to swim in the water but for the mere enjoyment of it, so too do I sleep," she told him.

"You _enjoy_ sleeping? How would you even know? You're unconscious while you do it. Sleeping is overrated," he informed her, moving around the console, trying to ignore the steadily growing dread in his gut. "You know what's not overrated?" he asked, about to entice her with some far off destination. "The-"

"-feeling you get when you just wake up after a really nice dream, and then you stretch and end up in an even more comfortable position than before, and then you end up falling back asleep and having _another_ good dream?" she asked, raising her eyebrows. "I know, I agree. Now, I'll see you in a few hours." She smirked. "Try to get into some trouble while I do, yeah?" She smiled even wider before she turned, stalking off into the hallway. All too soon, her form had disappeared from view, humming all the while.

He felt himself start to grumble in his chest at the fact that she wasn't by his side, but he realized this was a perfect time to start doing the repair work he'd been putting off so he could spend time with Anna (time? He scoffed to himself. Try every waking moment (which he pushed the thought as far from his mind as he could)). Still, he got to work, pulling out the tool box and pulling up the grating, ignoring the growing pit of dread in his stomach all the while.

#####

"Have you been in here this entire time?"

His head shot up and he looked at her to see that Anna was standing in the doorway. She was wearing pajama bottoms and a strappy tank-top, and he raised his eyebrows.

"Anna," he said. "Awake already?"

"It's been twelve hours," she pointed out. She was by his side in an instant, sitting be fair, she did seem more cheerful, more energetic now that she'd gotten some sleep."What're you doing, anyway?"

"Repairing my wonderful machine," he told her, standing. He grabbed a towel, wiping the grease off from his hands onto said towel. "Was doing, anyway. Thought maybe we could check out the Thousand Waterfalls of Mengani 7, now that you're done being a sodding lump." He tried not to let the resentment sink into his voice. She was allowed to sleep, even if it made no logical sense to him why she would do.

He felt her hand on his shoulder, turning him.

Her touch felt different than it had, before. More electric, the excitement more obviously flowing through his veins. He turned to look at her, to see that she was wearing-

Well, she was wearing something a little bit more revealing, now. She cupped his face in her hands, her lips tantalizingly close.

"Actually, I had something a bit different in mind," she told him.

She kissed him.

He gave in for a few long, solid seconds, before he finally managed to come back to his senses, pulling away.

"Anna, we can't," he told her.

She still had his face in her hands, gently stroking his cheek with her thumbs. Her next words surprised him.

"You're not as broken as you think you are. Here," she said, "let me show you."

She brought her lips to his.

This time he didn't stop.

#####

He awoke and stretched out his arms, expecting to find Anna in bed with him.

Expecting to be in bed at all, actually. When he felt the cool metal of the grating beneath him, he frowned, looking around-

Oh. He was still in the console room, doing repairs.

Just a dream, then.

He ignored the way bitter disappointment fell through his chest at that as he went back to repairs. Of course it was just a dream. The dream Anna had been wrong. He was every bit as broken as he thought he was, more so. How could he not be, after everything that had happened? The Time War hadn't spared anybody, least of all him. He was a changed man, whether he wanted to be or not, and Anna didn't need that kind of person in her life. Not in that capacity, anyway.

No matter how much every part of him wanted to argue with that stupid logic.

Except, life was short. Hadn't the War taught him that, more than anything had taught him in a very long time? So why wasn't he just giving into these urges? Why wasn't he just rushing into her room right now, ambushing her and giving in to his every desire?

He was shocked when he realized it was because of what happened at the carnival.

The Doctor may not have been a stalwart of responsibility, but there were certain things he never allowed himself to get caught up in. Except, that's exactly what he'd done. He'd gotten so excited at the prospect of a being with power who didn't flaunt it or abuse it or use it to hurt people that he'd ignored the thought that she might need to be stopped, or worse, taken care of in a more permanent manner.

He'd allowed himself to get caught up in Anna without thinking of the consequences.

But, the consequences had reared their ugly head when he'd thought she was the 'wrong' kind of being of power, changing an entire history and saying to hell with the way that things should've been, for the residents of Sustrai and Sustrai itself. Except, she was the right kind of being of power, because she'd never actually done what he'd thought she'd done and that's why he'd pushed her away-

"Oh, for pity's sake!"

Because it meant there was no point in pushing her away. Anna was the right kind of being of power. Seeing her over the past two weeks, knowing what she'd done… It would be one thing if he didn't have the proof of Gallifrey (and yes, there were bound to be things he didn't know about, mistakes she'd made, but everybody made mistakes), but he did have that proof, which meant that he was confident that he'd never have to turn into the person who stopped her.

He didn't care if Anna was sleeping. There was no time to waste. He got up, starting towards her room like a man with a mission (which he very much was).

#####

He stopped himself just short of opening her room without knocking, remembering at the last second (the very last second, his hand actually gripping the knob to twist it open) that she was probably still asleep. It hadn't been more than six or so Earth hours, and if she were aiming for a normal human sleep cycle, it would be another two hours before she was up proper.

Truth be told, he didn't care if she were asleep. He'd been fighting himself (pointlessly) on this for nearly two weeks, that want and longing creeping into every part of him. If she wanted to be cross with him for waking her up, so be it. It wouldn't be like her feelings would change because he'd disturbed the very last part of her sleep cycle.

"Anna?" he called, knocking on her door, his other hand still encasing the knob. The most self-control he could exert right now was not twisting the knob and opening the door. That was it. That was all. Everything else was off the table.

His hearts felt relief when she called out to him sleepily, letting him know it was okay to enter.

He did.

There was a dim light in her room, casting a nice soft glow about everything. On one wall was a dresser with a television sat directly above it, a door stationed before the television and after it. On the other was the headboard to her bed, an intricate metal design, and above that was a huge canvas that housed a picture he couldn't quite make out. On the wall directly ahead were two windows spaced evenly apart, though both of them had their curtains drawn.

There were also trinkets and pictures littering the bedroom, but again, it was too dark to see. Honestly, he couldn't be bothered with trying to focus on them, anyway, so consumed with his thoughts, his sole focus on Anna.

Anna, who was currently lying on the bed, her hair significantly longer than it had been, fanned out across the pillows. She had her arm above her head, tucked around a pillow while the other was below it, doing much the same.

"What?" she called out, sounding much grumpier than she had when she beckoned him to come in.

He didn't care.

"Can you sit up for me?"

At that, she frowned, a single, irritated eye peeking open to look at him. "What for?"

"Because I'm asking," he replied.

Anna peeked her other eye open at him, barely lifting her head from the pillow, before she let out a dramatic sigh and nodded.

"Fine," she grumbled, sitting up. "But if you're interrupting my beautiful sleep to tell me that you've found some lost civilization and we have to head out right now, _yes, right now, Anna, sleeping is for humans, blah, blah, blah,_ I may have to-"

He never found out the end of her threat. In the next second, he was to her, grabbing her face in his hands and kissing her.

There was no way to describe how good it felt, after two weeks of holding himself back and then not having to. It was like coming up for air, like he'd been blind to the fact that he hadn't been breathing and now he suddenly was. He started to push her back to the bed, never wanting this moment to end.

All too suddenly, it did.

She put a hand to his chest, pushing him back. "Doctor, wait," she said, and he frowned, searching her eyes as he gently caressed her cheek with his thumb, an almost absentminded gesture.

"What's wrong?" he asked.

"No, nothing," she quickly reassured him. "Well," she said, reconsidering nearly right away. "First of all, kiss was great-"

"Course it was," he said.

Exasperation crossed her face, but there was a small smile crossing it as well. "Only you can be confident and arrogant in the same sentence," she said. "But, never mind that, we do have a small problem."

"Which would be…?"

"Well, to put it plainly, I'm an Anna from your future."

He searched her.

"Sorry, what?"

#####

"Like I said in the bedroom, I'm an Anna from the future," she told him. Currently, they were standing in the Tardis console room as she swept around the console, pressing buttons and putting in calculations like a pro. "My best theory is that she switched the past me and the future me, search me if I know why that's true. Think it's got something to do with my energy, and the fact- that I was sleeping can't have helped matters-"

"What're you doing?" he asked.

"Trying to get my past self back so that you two can continue what we started," she said, and she looked back at him with a teasing twinkle in her eye. Her eyes widened at the look on his face, before regret and apology washed through it. "Sorry, not used to a you this young anymore. It's really- blimey, not that I mean I'm with you that far into the future- Or, I mean- see this, this is why you don't disturb me when I'm sleeping!"

She wasn't looking at him when she said the last bit. Instead, she'd turned her stare to the rotor.

"Should I leave you two alone for a bit?" he asked her, covertly trying to get the answer that she hadn't yet given him, though he was throwing in a bit of sarcasm to the mix.

"I'm not sure if it would help the situation, but you're welcome to give it a shot."

Surprise washed through him. "I was joking."

"So was I," she said, looking back at him. There was a twinkle in her eye as she winked at him, smiling.

It amazed him how it could both enchant and annoy him, all at the same time. He couldn't explain the bad mood he was suddenly in, but it was taking everything in him not to snap at her.

Then he remembered that he couldn't, because of what she'd told him. A different anger began in his hearts then, and all of his anger was suddenly directed at the person responsible for the haunted look she'd gotten in her eyes that day as she'd sat on the Tardis jumpseat and told him how someone had twisted her into something that she wasn't.

At the look on his face, she raised her eyebrows, clearing her throat before she turned back to the rotor. "Anyway- oh crap, I remember this now!" She laughed, tipping her head back to do so as she held the console and leaned back. Every part of him was conflicted when all he wanted to do was run up to her and kiss her. He could, technically speaking. It wasn't as if-

But he couldn't. They had to figure out why the future and past Anna had been switched.

"You said something about energy- hold on, what does that mean, you remember this?" And why had she gotten so excited about it?

She shrugged, looking down at the controls, swaying gently back and forth on her feet.

"It means I remember this," she said, simply, tapping away at the keyboard before she looked up and squinted, reading-

… the monitors.

Well. That might explain his bad mood, considering he'd noticed it subconsciously but not consciously, which he wholly blamed on his lack of sleep.

"You're reading Gallifreyan."

Everything about her froze at that, her eyes stopped on the monitor. She raised her eyebrows before she licked her lips, searching the screen, as if she could take back this moment if she thought about it hard enough.

He felt everything in him freeze at the thought that she might.

"Anna," he said her name, quietly, a newfound terror shooting through him (he really, really shouldn't trudge on this long without getting any sleep, that had been a very bad idea). He couldn't say anything more than that, because he didn't know what he wanted to say first: _don't erase this moment_ or _you're reading Gallifreyan and there's only one way that can happen._

She finally spoke, her body forcing relaxation. "Course I am," she told him, tapping away at the keyboard. "What, you think I can rewrite the history of a species in the blink of an eye but I can't do something as simple as read a language-"

"Don't."

It was the harshest he'd ever said a word in his entire life. He felt a wild anger racing through him, burning him where it tread.

"Don't make light of this Anna, and don't lie to me. You've no right-"

"To keep your future in the future?" she asked him, her eyebrows raised as she started to dance around the console.

He stepped in front of her and she actually took a step back, gritting her teeth as she looked at the floor.

"You wanted to do that, you should've done when you had the chance."

His bad mood wasn't just anger. It was a newfound desperation that was racing through his chest, and it hurt.

"You cannot blame me for this," she said, pointedly, staring at the floor. "I was _sleeping._ I got _interrupted._ If you didn't keep wanting to trounce out about time and space because you can't deal with-" her eyes barely widened as she looked at the grating. She closed her mouth, letting out a breath through her nose. "We need to fix this," she started, quietly.

"No, you need to tell me how you can read Gallifreyan right now!"

He just started shouting at her. He didn't mean to. He was just so frustrated and desperate and he wanted- he wanted so many things, in that moment. He felt ice being thrown over his hearts when Anna flinched, taking a step back.

"Anna," he started, quietly, reaching out for her.

She flinched back again, throwing her arm half up, as if to block a hit she had come to expect.

Hurt raced through him that she thought he was even half capable of that… and then he started to wonder if he had been.

"Anna," he started, his voice broken in a way that it hadn't been before.

She cleared her throat, raising her eyebrows. "You know what, let's-let's just-"

"Anna, just- have I hit you? Please, I- because I only would've done because you would've told me that I had to, to keep time moving as it should do, which isn't an excuse, I promise, it's just-"

She shook her head. "No, no," she said, quietly, her voice mainly devoid of emotion. She looked to the left of him, her eyes also devoid of emotion as she gently rubbed at her right arm. "You've never hit me."

Relief fell through him before it was caught by the realization.

"But you… you said it was emotional abuse. You singled it out."

She shook her head, turning back to the console. "We aren't having this-"

"You don't get to dictate that, Anna."

"What, and you do?" she asked, looking back at him, her eyebrows raised. She was standing up straight, tall, confident, defiant. "You get to decide when I share personal information about me, despite the fact that, not only am I from the future and therefore know more than you at this juncture, but also that it's my history, which I decide when to share? Seriously? Is that really the path you want to be taking right now?"

He backed down, half holding up his hands as he looked down at the grating. "You're right," he said. "I'm sorry."

"For what?"

He frowned, looking up to see-

"Woah."

Currently, there were two Anna's in the console room. He raised his eyebrows, searching between the two. The so obviously past Anna was looking around the console room, and she was so obviously the past Anna because that Anna didn't look anywhere near as hardened. She just looked confused, completely oblivious and unaware as to what had transpired between the two of them.

"Fixed it," she said, and she started to walk towards the door.

"Fixed what?" Past Anna asked.

"Don't worry about it," she told herself, before she looked back at him. "As for you, don't chicken out. You hear me?"

There was a small smile on her face, a teasing tone in her voice. There were so many things he desperately wanted to say. He said none of them. Instead, he searched her, not agreeing with her confusing statement but simply crossing his arms, watching her as she got a sort of downhearted look in her eye.

"Right," she said, quietly, before she nodded. "Doctor," she said, before she looked at the grating, a small smile once again appearing on her face. She looked back at her past self. "Anna," she said, as if she were sharing a joke with her past self.

"Anna," she replied, in much the same tone.

She hesitated at the door, turning back to look at him. Regret was shining in her eyes as she took in every last detail about him. She shot him a small, regretful smile, before she disappeared through the doorway, some part of him knowing that he wouldn't be seeing her again for a very long time.

"Well, that was fun," Anna said, breaking him out of his thoughts.

"Not my idea of fun," he told her. "Just to let you know."

He went back to the controls, trying to see if he could see what Anna had seen. He looked at the monitors, trying to make sense of these readings.

His hearts stopped in his chest as he stared at the monitor.

She'd been able to read Gallifreyan.

That fight had been pointless. He already knew what it meant. It wasn't like he needed her to confirm it. There was only one that could happen for non-Gallifreyan's, and if Anna were doing it, it meant…

"What did she mean, about chickening out?"

He remembered, then, how this 'night' had started out, and what it had meant to lead to. It was with this thought in mind that he took the three steps it took to get to her, speaking.

"She was talking about this," he said, and he reached down and kissed her.

Despite his sureity, there was also the factor to consider that she could do impossible things. Maybe it really did mean that she really could read Gallifreyan just because. Besides which, even if his theory were correct, time could be rewritten. It likely would. There was no use dwelling on the maybe's if he didn't have to.

But, it was a thought that fell out of his mind as soon as Anna's surprise wore off and she started to kiss him back, and this time, neither of them stopped or pulled away.

Luckily for both of them, this time, neither of them were dreaming.

#####

"So, where are we off to today?"

He shrugged.

"Dunno," he said. "I was thinking about setting the controls to random, let the time winds take us where they may." He looked up at her, a large smile dominating his face.

"Sounds good to me," she said.

"And we're off!"

He pulled the lever.

#####

"Oh my goodness!"

She let out an _actual_ squeal of delight, and he frowned, looking down at her, though he couldn't help that there was a small smile on his face at the look of pure joy resting on hers.

"How did you- did you know- You know what, I don't even care, come on!"

It appeared to be a strip mall, decorated in typical Christmas decorations. Once again, there was a feeling of pure joy radiating out from her. She was practically vibrating with it, more excited than she had been, even for Knott's Berry Farm (which, truth be told, had turned out to be a pretty spectacular experience).

"Why's it that you get more excited about the most generic Earth things than you do for anything else?"

"One very, very simple word, Doctor," she told him, gently swinging their linked hands back and forth. With her other hand, she drew it in front of them, as if she were almost drawing the word. " _Nostalgia_ ," she answered him, a huge smile on her face. "I grew up riding the rides of Knott's Berry Farm, and so too did I come here often when I was growing up."

He frowned, stopping where he was and not even caring that it was basically in the middle of a cross section of traffic. Not even her tugging on his hand could move him from this spot.

At the look on his face, her look diminished somewhat, though it was more along the lines of the emotion simply being added on top of the joy.

"What?"

"'Growing up'?"

She frowned, searching him. "What-"

A car honked it's horn, and she frowned, looking over at the driver.

"Yeah, that's the spirit of Christmas!" she shouted at the driver, and he raised his eyebrows. The driver honked again, except now he'd added yelling to the list, in a distinctly American accent.

Oh, they were in America. Why was that important? He wasn't sure. All he knew was that Anna was rolling her eyes and looking at him like, 'Americans, am I right?' before she nodded towards the relative safety of the parking lot.

"Come on. Best not make him more upset than he already appears to be. Christmas does really bring out the best in people, doesn't it?"

He let himself be tugged along this time, if only so that Anna would stop being distracted by crazy drivers honking at pedestrians for no apparent reason.

"You still didn't answer my question."

"And what question was that?" she asked him, almost skipping along.

"You said growing up."

"I did. I also said that Christmas is my favorite holiday- Have I not said that? Ooh, you are about to learn today."

She looked back to front, humming some Christmas tune. He couldn't help but wonder if she were purposefully avoiding the question.

"As in, you grew up? You were born?"

She laughed as if it were the most absurd thing he'd ever asked. "What, did you think I just sprouted from a _black hole?_ Goodness, of course I was _born."_

"Where?"

It was the first time the light began to dim in her eyes. "Doesn't matter," she told him. "What does matter is that Christmas is-"

But, his exceptionally quick mind had put the puzzle pieces together. He stopped once more, though this time it was a more acceptable place for pedestrians to stand (not that he cared about that. He only cared in the sense that people wouldn't honk at them again).

"Hold. On," he said, and she raised her eyebrows at the look on his face. "You said-" he stopped, glancing around. "You said you were from 'somewhere', yes?"

"Well. Yeah."

He raised his eyebrows. "That somewhere has to be far away, right? For it to be… For this to be 'somewhere else'?"

"If you're getting to a point, I'd love it if you got there quicker so we could wander the stores-"

"How could you have visited this place growing up if you're from somewhere and this is somewhere else?"

Realization lit up her eyes.

"Oh… Right," she said, her body moving back and forth in rhythm with her words. She looked up at him, her other hand in her pocket, though their hands were still linked. "Dunno," she told him, shrugging. "Probably something about there only being a finite amount of ways that places can form and there are bound to be copies and, that aside…" she frowned, looking up at the sky, before she smiled, shaking her head. "That aside, who cares, because gosh darn it, it's Christmas, come on!"

He rolled his eyes at her antics.

Realization crested through him.

"Hold on, you're American!"

She just laughed.

#####

He would never admit it, but he didn't hate Christmas shopping as much as he'd thought he would.

Don't get him wrong. It was dead boring. They literally wandered the aisles, and for every five stores they visited, she only actually bought something at one.

But, to see her so happy and animated and talking about how Christmas was her favorite time of year and how it was perfectly acceptable to play Christmas music during November because who didn't love a jolly good tune more than one month out of the year (though personally he didn't understand the problem with playing Christmas music at any point. That could've been because he had the ability to visit any Christmas at any time, so the concept of 'playing Christmas music at a certain point of the year' was moot, anyway)… It made him happy.

It was enough to make the whole endeavor worth it.

They made it back to the Tardis, shopping bags in hand. She was bubbling on excitedly about how they should watch Christmas movies and make some food before dropping it off at some homeless shelters.

"You really do love your Christmas, don't you?"

He didn't realize how content he was, watching her, until he realized that that was what the warm feeling in his chest was. Watching her, he just felt content.

"I do," she agreed, smiling widely. "I really, really do."

In the next moment, there was a subtle change about her. He barely furrowed his brow.

"I don't know if you know this, Doctor," she started, as she crept over to him, the bags set down on the grating (which he'd have to lecture her about later. They didn't drop bags in the middle of the console room, because at any second, he might have to run about and save them from a time storm. Though, to be honest, she could teleport the bags away without a second thought, so maybe that was also a moot point). "But, one of the staples of Christmas is exchanging gifts. Or, rather, it's about… giving them."

"I did know that, thanks," he said, searching her. "I saw everything that you bought, though, so if you're expecting the surprise bit, that's sort of out of the question at this point."

She smiled. "You sure about that?" she asked him.

He raised his eyebrows. "Sure about what?"

"That you saw all the stuff that I bought."

He realized that her hands were behind her back, and he watched as she brought them around to the front. The box was green and red, a sturdy little thing decorated with ribbons and the like. She offered it out to him, and he searched her before he gently took it from her.

It was velvet and soft to the touch.

"What's this, then?" he asked her, before he brought it to his ear, shaking it. Whatever it was, it was small and made of plastic (because yes, he was that good).

"Open it," she told him.

He did just that, taking the top of the box off. He frowned at the content inside, grabbing it and sliding it out of the box. His eyebrows raised again. "Mistletoe," he pointed out, and he nodded. "You're right. Definitely didn't see you buy this, then."

It was suddenly out of his hands. He watched as it flew above them before it was suspended mid-air.

"It's sort of a two-part gift," she told him, "because there's also another Earth tradition. About two people standing under mistletoe."

"Oh, really?" he asked, playing along. "What might that be-"

She grabbed his face in her hands before she barely pulled him down, kissing him.

Contentment once again washed through him. She pulled back from him, a wide smile on her face. "Merry Christmas, Doctor."

"Merry Christmas, Anna," he said, before he brought his lips to hers, kissing her once more.

And what a merry Christmas it had turned out to be.


	4. A Thousand and One Falls

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Edit: 8/19: This was originally Chapter Seven, and now has been downgraded to Chapter Four.  
> This also marks the official end to the edits, so I hope you enjoy the rest of the story!  
> Chapter title based on, "A Thousand and One Nights"  
> I still don't own Doctor Who.

He was a restless creature.

That had been true with every regeneration, but he felt it especially in this one. He felt true contentment sitting in his hearts for about a day before he felt that itch, that need racing through him to see a sight of some kind.

So, they'd disentangled from each other, he'd taken Anna's hand and he hadn't looked back.

#####

It was an even ratio about who got to pick where they would end up, but he made the choice this time.

When he opened the doors and saw the way her eyes lit up so brilliantly at the sight before her, he knew he'd made the right choice.

"Wow," she breathed, that same awe and wonder in her eyes reflecting in her tone of voice.

Before them was the Thousand Waterfalls of Mengani 7. He'd parked the Tardis in the middle of a particular cluster of waterfalls that were so close together, they were on the edge of blending into one before they managed to pull back.

His smile was so wide that it almost split his face as he looked down at her. He looked up at said waterfalls a moment later.

Imagine Niagra Falls. Now, imagine that, hanging in mid-air, surrounded by constellations and galaxy against a backdrop of a supernova. That'd come close to what the sight before them looked like.

"The Thousand Waterfalls of Mengani 7, it's called, but mostly just The Falls to the locals," he explained. "Legend has it that, way back when the universe was still in it's early stages, a thousand giants roamed the place, all alone, content with the way things were. When the universe began to be populated with life, the giants all gathered together to mourn the loss of their way of life. They cried for so long that their bodies simply up and turned into the waterfalls that you see before you."

When he looked back at her, she had her hand clasped over her mouth, shaking her head, tears in her eyes. She removed her hand from her mouth.

"It's beautiful," she whispered, as the first tear dropped.

He'd seen this shock and awe on her face before. But, seeing it through the lens of her being what she was to him now? His hearts were absolutely singing, that contentment once again niggling deeply in his chest.

He thought he would've been happy to stand there forever, watching her enjoy the view.

She turned to him, sniffling as a huge smile broke out on her face. "Can we get a closer look?"

He snorted. "Is that even a question?" he asked her, before he smiled manically, closing the doors behind them.

#####

"Here we are, then! Best viewing spot this side of Sector 7."

It really was a spectacular view. He knew that she agreed by the look on her face.

Her eyes traced the waterfalls as his eyes traced every detail of her face. Her eyes, her cheeks, her lips. He started to lean down to kiss her when she spoke.

"Hold on, how does that work?"

He frowned. "What?" he asked, his eyes flicking between hers and her lips.

She nodded and he sighed, impatient, before he looked over.

There was an open bar resting a bit of a ways away from them. He tried to find anything out of the ordinary, but it was some local life forms and a bartender, polishing some glass.

"Well," he said, sarcastically. "That's a bar. That man there is a bartender. He takes people's drinks and-"

"And then falls to his death?"

"What?" he asked, and he looked back at her to see that she looked genuinely concerned.

"He's right up against the edge, isn't he?"

"What- oh, no, Anna," he started. "There's a forcefield behind him so that doesn't happen. I'm surprised you couldn't sense it, to be honest."

"Well, I'm a little distracted," she told him, and he looked back at her to see that she had that look in her eyes. "Can you really blame me?"

"No, I can't," he said, and he leaned down and kissed her.

#####

He'd been sent on a mission to find a food bar, because apparently, the bar they sat at didn't serve food for whatever reason. He'd gotten a local delicacy for her before he'd started to make his way back to her.

There wasn't much noise or chatter, so he was easily able to pick up Anna's voice as he walked back.

"What's your name?"

"Barrison Garrison."

"That's a great name. Where're you from, Barrison Garrison?"

"I'm from Starway Castellian. It's the fourth planet in the Starway galaxy, just a few hours away. Me and my husband are visiting for the first time. It's sort of our honeymoon, come a few years too late."

"Ah, but it's better late than never!" she said, joyously.

He caught sight of her and Barrison Garrison at the bar. Barrison was blue and had tentacles instead of hands and feet, though he still retained the humanoid shape.

"Yeah," Barrison agreed. "What about you? Where're you from?"

He perked up at the question, quickly pausing where he was and hoping that she hadn't seen him. She'd yet to answer this question directly, though he'd been able to extrapolate that it was likely she'd grown up in California, due to the location of the shopping center and the amusement park.

"Oh, far off system, little planet not worth mentioning," she told him. Well, there was that, then. "Me and my-" she stumbled. "Erm, well, friend, I guess," she told Barrison.

He frowned. Friends? Did she still consider them just friends? It wasn't like he made a habit out of doing what they'd been doing for the past however long with just friends.

She quickly corrected herself. "Friend isn't really a good word to describe what he is, but it's all so new? And anyway, I don't…" she shook her head. "Anyway, yeah, we're travelers, off to see the sights."

Barrison looked confused and a little hesitant. "I… don't mean to be rude, but you are female, are you not?"

"… Well, yeah," she started.

"And you… I'm sorry, again, I don't mean to be rude, I just don't travel much. Is it customary where you're from for females and males to be more than friends? Like… romantic partners?"

She looked startled by the question.

"Well… yeah," she said. "Is that not normal for you?"

"No," he replied. "In fact, I'm unsure I've ever heard of anyone who has had an opposite sex relationship. It's so strange," he said, taking a sip of his drink, shifting in the equivalent of his Hawaiian t-shirt, except it was decorated with shells, which was the most tourist-y thing one could get at The Falls. "I've never thought about it."

"So it's not outlawed or anything."

"Outlawed?" he asked, looking at her strangely. "Why would it be outlawed? It's just not something that our society has ever heard of. This is so exciting, learning about other cultures! This is why we should travel more often. My husband just can never get the time off."

"What does he do?"

"He crafts stories for public entertainment. He's employed full time by the Regent. It's a high profile entertainment company, one of the highest. Amazing benefits. Time off is few and far between. … I'm sorry, would it be considered rude if I asked about the whole opposite sex being romantic partners?"

She laughed. "Ask away," she replied.

He took this as his opening, strolling over with food in hand. "Hello!" he said. "Sorry it took so long, you wouldn't believe the lines here. I swear, this place is worse than Disneyland."

Not that he knew that from experience, considering he'd never stood in line at Disneyland. Perks of the psychic paper.

"Is this him?" Barrison Garrison asked, and he was suddenly grateful that he was eavesdropping. "The one who's more than a friend?"

He loped his arm proudly around her shoulder. "Yep, that's me, more than a friend, friend. Most people just call me the Doctor, though."

"Eavesdropper," Anna accused him, nearly a moment later, though it was only loud enough for him to hear. In the next moment, she raised her voice so that Barrison could hear. "I also did say it was very new, if you'll remember."

Confusion crept through his eyes before Barrison put his hand over his mouth, realization widening his eyes. "Oh, I'm sorry, have I told him about your feelings before you've had a chance to-" he slapped a hand over his mouth. "And I've done it again!"

He looked down at her. "Anna Monroe, do you mean to tell me that you've a crush on me?" he teased her.

"Absolutely not. I just enjoy occasionally kissing you. And other stuff. But that's it."

He shook his head sadly. "I knew it. Just using me for my body."

"Not just for your body," she told him, and she grabbed his shirt to pull him down to her as she spoke. "That's discounting all the traveling you help me do."

"Good point," he replied, right before their lips met.

He could taste the banana daiquiri on her lips, the harsh sting of alcohol more present for him because of his acute senses. He didn't mind, even about to deepen the kiss before he heard Barrison laugh.

He raised his eyebrows, drawing back to look at him.

"I'm sorry," Barrison apologized. "I've just never seen an opposite sex couple before! It's so strange! Is this typical- you said it was typical where you're from?"

"Yeah," she replied, before she took a bite of her food. He felt a full body shudder erupt from her and he looked over to see that she was spitting it out. "Urgh, no," she said, before she took a gulp of her banana daiquiri… and then shuddered again. "Imma excuse myself, sorry about that," she said.

Disappointment rolled through him when she slithered out from underneath his arm.

"Hold on, where are you off to?" he asked.

"Sightseeing," she said, sarcastically, as she turned to walk backwards. Her face transformed and she wiggled her eyebrows. "Have to see about my other options. Lots of travelers here, after all."

Despite the fact that he knew she was kidding, he still felt jealousy rear it's ugly head.

Before he could speak, she continued, "Who knows? Maybe I can find a nice woman to shack up with next."

His eyebrows raised at that particular sentiment.

She laughed at the look on his face before she turned on her heel, sauntering off. He turned around to lean against the bar.

"I don't understand," Barrison said, and he looked over at him as he picked at his food, his eyebrows raised. "I thought she was attracted to the opposite sex."

"Apparently, she's attracted to both male and female," he said, still picking at his food.

"… That's possible?"

Despite his newest mood, he laughed.

#####

It'd been nearly half an hour and Anna hadn't returned.

He'd had a lovely conversation with Barrison about the nuances of opposite sex dating (which he was astounded and shocked to find that dating for the opposite sex was exactly the same as dating with the same sex! Who knew?).

"Will you excuse me? I think I've to find my more than a friend, friend, now," he said.

"Oh, yeah, she hasn't come back yet! Have you tried sending her a Mark?"

"A-" he started to ask when Barrison held up something that was remarkably similar to an Earth cell phone but was designed to fit his tentacle. "Oh, a Mark. No, she hasn't got one of those. Or I just don't have her number."

Barrison honestly looked confused. "How do you not have her number?" he asked him.

"Just never came up," he told him, looking around distracted, before he smiled, patting Barrison on the shoulder. "Now, if you'll excuse me, I've to find her before she does decide to take up with someone else," he joked. "It was nice to meet you."

"You too!" he said, in that nice but confused way people often did when he up and ran off in the middle of a conversation, which was often.

He didn't mind this. He was solely focused on finding Anna.

It wasn't that he was worried, either about her shacking up with other people or even getting into trouble. She'd more than proven she could handle her own when it came down to it, much less breakable than the humans he normally traveled with.

That was part of what made it so stupid for him to hold off as long as she'd done. She didn't have the lifespan of a human. He wouldn't have to worry about watching her aging and dying right in front of him. Now that he was thinking about it, he realized that she might actually outlive him.

He hadn't thought about it before, what the universe must look like to her. He might be older than most known civilizations, but she was likely older than that. How many people had she seen turn to dust, right before her eyes? How many people had she lost in the very same way he'd done?

A fierce protectiveness of her washed over him. It was irrational, but he suddenly wanted to protect her from all the bad in the universe, but especially that feeling of being alone and knowing that she would always end up alone, because everyone around her would eventually grow old and wither and decay.

"Anna!" he called out her name, on the off chance that she was near. He suddenly wanted to get them back to the Tardis as quickly as possible, to hide her away from the rest of the universe, create a little cove all their own.

He was surprised when he felt his leather jacket catch, and he jerked back, only to be spun around a moment later. He barely had time to process this before lips were on his. He started to jerk back before he tasted the banana daiquiri on her lips and he relaxed, kissing her back.

This kiss was different, though. There was that passion, yes, but there was also urgency laced within the kiss itself.

He was well distracted with this when his own feelings began to well up and he growled against her lips, "Tardis."

He felt the air around him change and he barely opened his eyes, barely taking note that they were suddenly standing in the console room.

He wrapped his arms around her, preoccupied with every part of her, even as the thought of that urgency in her kiss hung around in the back of his mind.

Despite his brave words of wanting to create an alcove in the Tardis for them, he'd once again given in a few hours later, dragging her to the console room to show her the next sight.

They continued the routine they'd had for the past few weeks, him showing off spectacular sights. The only difference was, they'd end up coming back to the Tardis afterward to partake in a different kind of spectacular altogether.

Some part of him relaxed more than he had in nearly a millennia, his hearts content. He started to imagine, for the first time, that maybe this could be his forever, him and Anna traveling side by side.

Maybe they would've done, if not for the fact that the angels came and changed everything.


	5. Flesh and Stone

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As I mentioned at the beginning of the story, there will be spoilers for all of NuWho. I'll mention spoilers for any Doctor Who that came out in the past two years, as well as the big specials, i.e., The Day of the Doctor (Which spoilers for Time of the Doctor for this chapter). I feel like, at this point, everything else is fair game. If not and you'd liked to be warned anytime I have an episode as opposed to an original adventure… Well, I name the episode adventures with the episode title, so that's as good as any, I suppose.  
> Also, just as a heads up, I won't be doing any episodes word for word, so if you haven't seen it, you might be slightly confused by the jumps. You might be slightly confused even if you have, come to think of it.  
> Anyway, I still don't own Doctor Who.

Anna was on a beach.

That was the first thing she noticed, before anything else. Even before that it was wrong that she should be on a beach.

She could feel cold sand inbetween her fingers, the smell of the ocean and the sounds of the waves gently crashing against the shores. She'd know a beach anywhere. She'd grown up around them, taken road trips to them, even considered-

Anna started to dry heave right there on the sand.

"Anna!"

She heard the name being called but she didn't properly recognize that it was her they were speaking about (whoever this illustrious 'they' was). All she could focus on was the feeling of her body contracting, performing a ritual that was no longer necessary in order to rid itself of the bad that didn't exist.

"Anna, Anna, hey."

It was the first time she questioned what she was doing on the beach.

Her body ceased it's motions and she managed to look up, frowning at the figure that was crouched down in front of her. "What-"

Pain scorched her head and she grabbed at her forehead. She barely felt herself falling forward into someone's arms, too focused on the images flashing in front of her face. A yard with an imposing house, the Doctor stepping out behind her-

"Anna, Anna, talk to me," she heard a voice say, one that was familiar and yet not, all by the same token.

She let out a curse word and she shook her head, managing to breathe enough to look up, to get her bearings.

"Urgh, where am I?" she asked, looking around through squinted eyes. Some part of her registered that she was currently sitting in someone's arms-

No. No, she was being cradled in someone's arms, partially sitting in their lap. When she looked up, frowning, she saw why.

"Oh," she said. "It's you. Hey."

She passed clean out in his arms.

#####

_"Where has she taken us this time?"_

_"Dunno, the scanners were refusing to pick it up." The Doctor looked around at the same thing Anna was seeing, a gray and foggy day, which just so happened to be the perfect backdrop for the ominous house that stood tall and proud in front of them._

_"My money is on horror movie."_

_"Shut up," he said, and she rolled her eyes, smiling a little bit fondly. "Next thing you're gonna say is that you believe in ghosts." He frowned, looking down at her. "Are ghosts real?"_

_She laughed. "Six years traveling together and this is the first time you've thought to ask about something like that?"_

_"But are they, though?" he responded to her answer._

_She slyly shrugged. "Some questions are better left unanswered," she told him._

"Anna."

_She turned around to search the yard with her eyes, taking a few steps in and careful to avoid the overgrown roots. "Okay, seriously, what are we-"_

"Anna, wake up."

_"-doing here?"_

_"You mean you don't know?" he teased her._

_"Shut up," she was the one telling him this time, gently pushing on his shoulder. He settled before he glanced around, and when she looked at his expression, she frowned. "What is it?"_

_He shook his head, his keen eyes taking in everything about the yard. "I don't know," he told her. "Something's off, though. Stay close."_

_"This is just a ploy to get me to cower into your arms. I know your tricks, mister," she told him, starting to walk off, smug as anything._

_"Anna, I'm serious," he said, putting a hand on her shoulder. She turned back to look at him, to see that he was looking down at her. "Something's-"_

"-wrong with her?"

_"-wrong here and I don't know what it is. Stay-"_

"-back-"

_"-close."_

_She searched him. He rarely had such a serious face on, even with the serious face he had. She nodded. "Okay," she agreed, grabbing his hand on her shoulder before she interlaced their fingers._

_She nearly died of fright at the sight behind her._

_A Weeping Angel._

_Her eyes widened and she stared at it, her heart pounding in her chest as she pulled the Doctor behind her, throwing a shield up around them out of instinct._

_"No, no, stay behind me, stay behind me, I mean it!" she shouted at him, her eyes wide, breathing hard._

_"Anna, what-"_

_She felt movement behind her, pressing up against the shield, but it was already too late._

_"Oh, fu-"_

_That was the last thing she said before she felt the Weeping Angel fracture her shield, grabbing her shoulder from behind. Her vision tunneled and she felt like she was being sucked through a too small tube, the next thing she was aware of was sand between her fingers-_

"Doctor!"

"No, hey, it's okay, it's okay, I'm here, I'm here, breathe, Anna, it's okay, it's okay."

Bowtie talked so fast that he got that sentence out between one breath and the next.

She looked up at him, desperate, patting his face and his bowtie.

"Are you okay?" she asked him, searching him.

He frowned behind his mask but put on as much reassurance as he possibly could in front of his mask.

"Anna, I'm fine, just breathe-"

Frustration rolled through her so hard that she saw him flinch from the strength of it.

"Not you, the past you, the one that-" she cursed. "Did they kill him- you, I don't- I don't-"

He put both hands on either side of her face.

"Anna, relax," he said, in the most calming voice he could as he rubbed his fingers against her cheeks. "Look at me. Just talk to me. Start over. Which past me?"

She started to answer him before her eyes found what they'd missed.

The great hulking behemouth behind the Doctor's head. She'd seen the episode enough times to recognize the sight in front of her, the smoking ruin that sat before her now.

"The Byzantium."

She gulped.

She didn't know when she'd managed to disentangle herself from him or when she'd stood, but she turned now with all of the enthusiasm of someone in a horror movie that was about to turn around to find a ghost behind them.

"Hello, dear."

There she was, standing behind her, smiling as if she were looking at prey.

"Hello, River."

Just as that would always be the last day of the Last Great Time War, so too did some people always exist in every version of reality. It was incredibly rare and, truth be told, she could count the number of people on one hand that applied to.

River Song was apparently one of them. Standing in front of her now, she could sense that as clear as she could sense the fact that finding out who River was in this version of reality was a spoiler of a universe shredding variety. The universe wouldn't necessarily cease to exist, but what would be left in the wake of finding out the spoiler wouldn't be much better than if it did cease to exist entirely.

"Well? Are you going to keep standing there or are you going to explain your little passing out adventure just then? Not much can do that to you. Even I have to admit, that's impressive."

She was wearing the black dress and currently, she was trying to conceal worry behind an impressive mask. The only reason Anna could see through it was because she was who she was (and she wasn't referring to any of her numerous powers, either. Some things she'd learned the hard way. Reading through people's masks was one of them. Even one as impressive as Dr. River Song's).

"The- erm, angels- oh my god, the angels," she said, and she turned back.

The Doctor was standing, his trousers covered in an erratic, thin layer of sand. He hadn't bothered to dust himself off, though why should he? Being covered in various dirts and things was about eighty percent of his job. Considering that he'd been covered in Star Whale bile, sand was probably a welcome addition (or rather, he had been in one version of reality. She had no doubt that he'd seen the equivalent, if not worse, in this one. That's just who he was, no matter where he existed).

"Wester Drumlins you, is he okay?"

Yes, he was standing before her. That in no way meant that his past self was okay. Angels had a unique way of screwing things up, and that was putting it mildly. Throw in her power of being paradox proof and she might be standing in a version of reality that had no business existing, and would no longer exist once she exited it and found her way back to the 'right' time.

What a waste it would be, to save him from centuries of grief and loneliness, only to have him die six short years after she'd done so.

He opened his mouth to speak, a look on his face that she started to decipher to mean that that him was all right, she needn't worry, when he stopped in the middle of starting his sentence.

The look that passed over his face wasn't just fear. It was terror. He was terrified.

"Wester-Wester Drumlins?" he asked her, and she raised her eyebrows, her heart pounding out of her chest, she had to get back to him, she had to save him, oh god- "That's-that's what you said, Wester Drumlins?"

She barely nodded.

A thousand looks passed through his eyes in the blink of an eye, and because it was the Doctor, that wasn't an exaggeration. He looked like he wanted to say so many things in the span of one breath and the next. In the end, his face settled on a helpless look that he tried to conceal behind a broken mask, before he simply settled for that manic persona that he often had.

"He's-" he started, before a look of consideration passed over his face and he frowned, barely looking away from her. "You know what, I actually don't know if that counts as a spoiler or not," he replied.

It was a very rare occasion that Anna either lost her temper or slapped someone. Right now, she was very close to doing both.

"Speaking of, I see you've met River. Or have you? Time's all wibbly, especially with you involved. Anyway, never mind that, big crashed space ship, River in fancy dress, it's all very exciting, isn't it?"

She felt herself soften at the look of glee on his face, even if it was of the manic variety, though worry was still seeping through to her bones. What did that look mean? Why was he so worried about Wester Drumlins?

She knew better than to ask twice for what he apparently constituted as a spoiler, so she simply spoke.

"Whatever," she said.

"So, is that a no on explaining why you passed out?" River asked.

She smiled, looking at the Doctor. "Spoilers," she said, before she stuck her tongue out at him.

He stuck his tongue out at her right back, and she rolled her eyes fondly before she ran up to him, hugging him.

"I'm glad you're alive for at least a few more hours," she told him. Truth be told, she was about ninety eight percent positive that he had survived the encounter with the angels, if only because of the expression he'd started to have before he started panicking for whatever reason.

"Same to you," he said, hugging her back just as tightly. She could barely sense that worry rolling off of him and she quickly sent him a jab of reassurance. _I'm all right_ , it said. He hugged her tighter at that, squeezing her.

"As sickeningly adorable as this is, can we get to the business at hand?"

He rolled his eyes. She couldn't even see his face and she knew that he rolled his eyes, that's just how strong it was.

Still, he drew away from her, quickly making it clear that he had no plans of letting her out of his arms entirely as he turned her, wrapping his arm around her waist as he looked at River expectantly.

"Which would be? You never did say."

"You never did ask," she pointed out. "Though, Anna, dear, you may want to pop out of here before I make this call."

Blatant surprise shot through him and she looked back over at him. He was poorly concealing it, even as he swallowed and asked in a voice higher than normal. "Why's-" he cleared his throat. "Why's that?"

She shook her head. "No reason," she said. "Just don't say I didn't warn you."

She walked off, making said call.

The Doctor spun around and, because she was attached so closely to him, she spun with him.

"Woah," she said, as a bout of dizziness struck her. She leaned heavily against him, trying to take deep breaths.

"Okay?" he asked, holding onto her.

She nodded. "Yeah, fine," she said. "Just dizzy is all."

"You sure?" he asked her.

She could feel his concern radiating off of him. She wanted to assuage him, even if she didn't understand why he wasn't simply telling her why he acting this way. "Fine," she told him, before she reached out and kissed him.

She'd meant for it to be simple and soft, but he dove into it headfirst.

Don't get her wrong, Leather Jacket was passionate as the day was long. But, Bowtie was ten times that. There was something about him that told her he wasn't holding any inch of himself back from her. It didn't hurt that he obviously knew her, and knew how to kiss her. Leather Jacket was over nine hundred years old and had the experience to boot; Bowtie just had the upperhand in that he had experience with her specifically, and it showed.

"Doctor, can you-" she heard, distantly. "It's like being around rabbits with you two, I swear, Anna, dear?"

She didn't know whether to laugh at the fact that River knew she was more likely to get a response with Anna than she was with the Doctor, or groan because it meant that she'd have to respond to her inquiry.

She pulled away from him, making sure to keep clear of him long enough to find out what River wanted.

"Yes dear?" she asked, and then instantly regretted the fact that she called River 'dear'. There was no taking it back, now.

River had a twinkle in her eye. "Can you sonic me? I need to boost the signal."

She furrowed her brow. "Are you trying to tell me that I've a sonic in the future?"

"I'm trying to ask if you'll reach into his coat to get the sonic, since he was so busy being distracted with you."

The Doctor was grumbling but she felt him taking out the sonic nonetheless. "I can handle boosting a signal, you know," he told her, irritation leaking through to his voice, even as he did as she asked.

"I never said you couldn't," she replied, smug as anything. "I just said you were busy handling something else."

Anna burst out laughing at that. She looked over at the Doctor to see that his ears were turning a spectacular shade of pink, and she started to laugh that much harder.

"Oh, shut up," he said, and he started to stalk off.

"No, wait, come back!" she said, following after him. "I don't think I'm done being handled!"

He quickly shushed her, though he didn't object to their arms being linked.

"Don't encourage her." He glanced back at River. "It's bad enough, her…" He trailed off when he saw that she was walking over to them, apparently having finished with her call. He looked back out at the ocean, a sour expression on his face.

She knew why when she saw what River was holding.

"So, when are we up to?"

It was then that she realized that Amy was absent entirely.

It wouldn't do to ask about where the redhead was. Spoilers and all. Besides, she wasn't sure that she minded finding out the long way round, if it meant that she could hold off on the thought that she'd have to let what that despicable woman would do to Amy happen in order for time to progress as it should. Well, time progressing as it should as much as this version of events needed to. All bets were off when it came to the illustrious eye patch woman.

She didn't dwell on that thought much longer, speaking.

"Before you do the whole 'syncing the diaries' thing, I feel it's pertinent to mention that I haven't actually met you. Well, in person, anyway." River frowned, looking up at her, and she shrugged. "Sorry," she tacked on, because what else was there to say? It wasn't exactly her fault, but she had been acting fairly familiar with her and that might've given her the wrong idea.

A look fell through River's eyes at that, though she couldn't exactly describe it. "Right," she said. "Early days for you, then. For you as well?" she asked, turning to look at the Doctor.

"What?" he asked, looking over at her, annoyed and somewhat frustrated. "Early days? Yes, yes, early days for me as well," he said.

He turned back to look at the ocean, and if looks could burn, the ocean would be nothing but a barren wasteland. That same frustration and annoyance was rolling off of him like a physical thing.

She realized a moment later that she _could_ feel the emotions radiating off of him, and she frowned.

"Hold on, how come I can feel you?"

His look vanished to be replaced with a frown. "Come again?" he asked, looking a little lost.

"You know, like, emotions," she told him, and he raised his eyebrows, letting out an errant 'ah' at that. He looked back out at the ocean, his face somewhat more relaxed. "I didn't realize before, I can't really feel your emotions all that well."

He spoke in a low voice, his eyes deftly searching the ocean all the while.

"Byproduct of the war," he told her, and her eyes widened. After not even referencing it for the past six years, it felt like a taboo openly discussing it. "Time lords being telepaths and that being the biggest war in all of creation, it got a bit overwhelming to be exposed to that much emotion all the time. Learned to just block off that part of myself." He shook his head, shrugging. "Guess I just hadn't turned it back up to full volume at that point in time. I would say that I'm surprised you could feel me at all, but you being who you are, well…"

They were quiet for a moment before she cleared her throat, shaking her head. "Sorry," she told him.

He frowned, looking over at her. "For what?" he asked.

She shrugged, about to tell him that she was sorry she'd made him talk about it. "For all of it, I guess," was what ended up coming out.

A sad smile graced his face. "Oh, Anna," he said. "I don't think I have words to describe how little you actually have to be sorry for. Though, I think I come close when I say that you did end up saving, well, basically the entire universe by doing what you did?" he tried.

"Still doesn't come close to what you've done and continue to do, considering that saving the universe is practically your day job by now."

"Oh, really now?" he asked, a twinkle in his eye.

"Absolutely," she said. "You're just missing the business cards."

"Business cards," he said, and she realized how close they'd gravitated towards each other in that moment. "Now why didn't I think of that-"

"As much as I enjoy seeing you two acting like blushing schoolchildren," River interrupted them, and the Doctor let out a soft sigh that fanned her face. She smiled, turning away as she tried to conceal the laugh. "Anna, this is your last chance."

She felt the drop from the Doctor and she frowned as she looked back at them both.

"Last chance for what?" he asked. His tension had been ramped up to about a thousand, and he seemed to be unconsciously trying to keep her behind himself.

"To poof out of here."

Anna saw the four dust clouds off in the distance and realized exactly what it was that River was talking about, putting the puzzle pieces together surprisingly quick.

"Oh, no," she said, and she looked at River. She barely frowned at that.

The Doctor spoke. "Oh no what?"

"Tell me they don't."

"Don't what?"

River raised her eyebrows. "I'm afraid I've no idea what you're talking about," she told her.

She shot her a deadpan look. "They think I'm one of God's miracles-" a look of understanding crossed her face at that, slowly washing over it. "- _and they'll all bow down before me_ , tell me they don't."

She shrugged. "I don't make it a habit of lying to you," she told her, starting to walk from her. "Not that I can, really, considering you're one of God's miracles and you know everything."

She stuck her tongue out at River. The Doctor sighed.

"Come on," he said. "Church soldiers await, and all."

They walked hand in hand to where the Church soldiers had appeared. All the while, she could feel that quiet dread and helplessness radiating off of him, no matter how hard he tried to conceal it. The question was, why was he feeling that way? Why wasn't he just telling her? He knew how much power she had, and even if she didn't always do something, shouldn't he be trying to figure out if she could?

The first Church soldier spotted her and he quickly dropped to one knee, almost falling over to do it. She rolled her eyes, but not before she saw him bowing his head, his friends doing much the same.

Father Octavian did much the same before he looked up at her.

"Doctor Song promised me an army. She did not tell me she was bringing The Agent." She furrowed her brow, glancing at 'Doctor Song'. "Please accept our sincerest apologies. We haven't brought any offerings."

She raised her eyebrows, now fully looking at Doctor Song.

She didn't know what she was more surprised by: this whole nonsense or the disdain she could suddenly feeling wafting off of the Doctor like a physical thing between them. She looked over at him- and raised her eyebrows even further at the look he was throwing River.

She looked back at River. _The Agent?_ She mouthed.

River, apparently unaware of the Doctor's disdain for what could only _be_ her, smirked. "Yes, well, _God's Agent_ surprised me as well," she said, nodding at her, and Anna raised her eyebrows. "Besides which, if you'll remember correctly, I promised you the equivalent of an army. This is the Doctor."

Octavian's eyes widened and he fumbled to stand before he saluted. "Father Octavian, sir… Agent," he said, nodding at her. "Bishop, second class."

He saluted back, but not in the awkward 'I'm trying to dissuade him of any notion that I'm anything more than a bumbling idiot' that he had done in the show. Instead, this was just the resigned salute that Pinstripes had gotten so good at.

"Twenty clerics at my command," he continued. "The troops are already in the drop ship and landing shortly. Doctor Song was helping us with a covert investigation. Has Doctor Song told you what we're dealing with?"

"Doctor, what do you know of the Weeping Angels?"

#####

"So," she started, conversationally. "Got a plan?"

"I never have plans," he told her. "Plans are boring. Which I feel like you of all people should know about me."

"Yeah, but this a _weeping ange_ l," she told him, in a way that suggested this was a Halloween monster and not a creature of quantum mechanics. "Anything could happen."

She was already working on saving all of the men. It was problematic because the four who had died via the crack would have to die via the crack once more. It was made more complicated by the fact that Amy wasn't here to have the angel in her mind-

She frowned. "Something already did," she mumbled.

"Anna?"

She ignored the Doctor in favor of following this thought.

The only reason that the angels had even come here was because of the crack in time, because they knew that they'd be able to feast on the energy. The only reason that the crack existed was because his Tardis had been blown up to prevent him from reaching Trenzalore, which had only happened…

Which had only happened because the time lords had managed to make it so that there was a question to be answered. The oldest and first question in the universe.

But nobody was asking that question now. Which meant that he didn't make it to Trenzalore. Which meant that there was no war being waged on the Doctor. Which meant that nobody tried to blow up his Tardis. Which meant that there were no cracks in time. Which meant that the angels had no reason to come here.

She frowned, staring at the ground. Maybe they did, she reasoned. Maybe they still did because maybe the cracks did exist. The universe being unwritten was a violent thing. Perhaps the universe had blown up, simply because it had blown up.

She checked to see if this universe needed repairing-

But no, it was fine. There were no cracks in the universe. So, what were the angels doing here?

It was more than the fact that the army of angels was still here. There would've been no point for the one angel to be a collector's item. The angel wouldn't have been patient until the moment it made it on board the Byzantium, so that it could crash into the Aplan moratorium to feed the angels who had been waiting for centuries, because they wouldn't have been waiting for centuries for the crack to appear in the first place. So what in the hell were the angels doing there?

Angels fed on potential energy, but she'd always had this theory that they could use it to see potential timelines. Perhaps they'd been able to see the potential timeline where the crack had existed, and they'd just got their channels mixed up. But what would they do, now that the crack was no longer there?

Her eyes widened as she stared at the ground, the full implication of what she was thinking coming full circle.

What would _they_ do now that there was no crack? The only reason the Doctor and co. had even survived was because the angels had fallen into a crack in time and space.

Well, that was simple, she realized not moments later, because teleporting them out would be a breeze. The question remained about what she was meant to do with the Weeping Angels, who _had_ to be unwritten in order for the universe to continue on as it should.

She was a being of unknowable power, which meant that she could do amazing things. It meant that there truly was always another way, which was why she'd made the rule ages back that she could never kill another living thing. It meant she couldn't just unwrite the angels, because if she did, she would have been the one to kill them, not the crack.

She couldn't just stuff them into an alternate dimension as she'd done with the daleks. Weeping Angels were a thousand times more complex. They were quantum beings who didn't technically exist on a physical plane until someone was looking at them. It meant dealing with them would be harder than she thought.

She had some time, though. The angels didn't know that there wasn't actually a crack, and wouldn't know that for a fact until there wasn't one to worship. It meant her biggest problem-

The four who were devoured by the crack.

Oh, this day just got a thousand times harder. How was she supposed to deal with the men who weren't supposed to exist, all the while figuring out a way to make it so that the angels didn't exist, without actually unwriting any of them from existence?

"Okay?"

She looked over to see that the Doctor wasn't looking at her, fiddling with a piece of equipment as he was. She smiled.

"Just getting a sense of just how much brain power you actually have," she told him. In all the time they'd traveled together, she'd never had to work a problem this hard before. It was, to say the least, not a fun time. She smiled as she worked her way over to him. "Have I ever told you just how impressive I think you are?"

He automatically smirked, but continued to examine the pieces of equipment his eyes had fallen on.

"I think it could stand to be said _more_ ," he said, and the smirk grew. " _Especially_ when we're-"

"Sweetie!"

A look of sheer annoyance crossed his face. Anna frowned, but didn't otherwise say anything. If he wanted to be annoyed with her, he was more than welcome. Besides which, it wasn't as if she had any real proof that he shouldn't be. Well, in this version of reality, anyway.

#####

Although they still found out that the image of an angel is itself an angel, nobody ended up getting an angel stuck in their head. That was part one of the good news. Part two of the good news was that she'd figured out that she could unwrite the men from their timelines whilst also still preserving them so that she could place them in a dimension where people she couldn't necessarily save could end up living out long and happy lives. If she did it right, she could even time it so that all the people she couldn't save would populate at the same time, and create a happy world to live in.

It was a simplification of what was happening, but it was the best she could do for now. She started to set up the alternate dimension as they 'searched', not having to use much brain power to do it. That was the good thing about being her. Things happened without much help or energy from her, and usually in the blink of an eye.

In the meantime, things played out as they were supposed to. The Doctor and River realized that they'd been fooled by a low level perception filter, before they realized they were surrounded by an army.

It was astounding. During the past six years, she'd almost never been able to tell that the Doctor was scared. Now, she could feel it radiating off of him like he were a rock singer at a concert, his voice blasting out from an amplifier. Except it was nothing like that, but if it helped.

He didn't even bother to ask if the angel was still in the ship or not. He simply grabbed her hand and they ran with the soldiers, and because Amy wasn't there, they all made it to the Byzantium with time to spare.

"Agent? Can I speak to the Agent, please?"

She raised her eyebrows, looking at the radio. Octavian didn't even pause to hand one to her, telling his men to keep a visual contact on the angels.

She glanced at the Doctor to see that he was doing calculations to try to get them out of this. She'd be more than happy to buy him the time to figure this out.

"Hello, angels. What's your problem?"

"Your power will not last much longer, and the angels will be with you shortly. Sorry, ma'am."

She smiled slightly. "Why're you telling me this?" she asked, sarcastically.

"You can save them," he started, and she rolled her eyes, bracing herself for the 'you could've saved them all what kind of monster are you' speech she was no doubt about to receive. Before she spoke, he surprised her. "Just hand yourself over to us."

Her eyebrows shot up before she frowned. "Sorry, what?"

"The angels have no interest in anyone except for you. The power that you possess will feed the angels for the rest of time."

She frowned even deeper.

"What about…" she started, before she bit her lip, glancing over at the Doctor, to see that he wasn't looking at her, his stare frozen on the ground.

Everything about him was the picture of tense. She was sure that, if she so much as touched him, he would crumble underneath her grasp.

Okay, but what about the crack, she wondered? Why weren't the angels waiting for the energy from the crack, which they thought was their salvation? She didn't understand.

Angel Bob either hadn't heard her or didn't care that she'd spoken.

"If you agree to give yourself over to the angels, everyone else will be spared. You have the angel's word."

She snorted at that. "I'm sure you're creatures of your word," she told him-

It clicked for her. Harshly. Violently.

"Oh, I'm a _moron_ ," she muttered, but not into the radio.

Angels didn't send you forward in time. They sent you backwards in time, which meant that it was impossible for an angel in the 21st century to send her to the 51st.

Not necessarily, she realized. The show hadn't specifically mentioned that angels couldn't send people forward in time, they just didn't. It would still take a massive amount of energy to do something like this-

Like, say, an army of angels sacrificing their energy so they lost their image because they'd lost so much of their power?

That was why the angel had been so patient. Why it had still been a collectors item. So that they could spring this trap and collect energy that they believed would feed them for a gajillion lifetimes.

She said _believed_ because it wouldn't do diddly squat for them.

She was a being of incredible power. Did they really think that she hadn't put in a precaution just for this situation? She knew what her power could do, and in the wrong hands, it would create devastation on a multi-verse scale. Her power, or her energy, in this case, only worked for her.

Teleporting out of here was out. The angels could track that energy back to the source and get her back here in an instant. Teleporting everybody else out wasn't a half bad idea, but there was no telling that they wouldn't track that energy back to the source and get their hostages back in an instant, this time actually with their arms around their throats.

There was only one thing to do, then.

"Father Octavian, give me your gun."

"It is against holy regulations for God's Agent to wield a weapon of mankind."

She furrowed her eyebrows, looking back at him. "Seriously?" she asked, but he was keeping visual contact on the angels and couldn't see the look she was throwing him.

"You don't need it," the Doctor said, and she rolled her eyes before turning to look at him.

It wasn't judgement that he held on his face. It was just an earnestness that rested about him, now. Well, that and the hailstorm of emotions he was trying to conceal behind his eyes, but she wasn't focused on that.

"Whatever it is that you want to do, you can do it without a weapon of any kind, because you're Anna, and you are just that amazing."

She had to resist the urge to reach out and smash her lips on his. That said nothing about later.

It was then that the idea came.

She'd never know where the idea came from, and why it had never come to her before. Truth be told, neither of those things mattered. She smiled so widely it almost hurt. "You're right," she agreed. "I am amazing."

He smiled at the look on her face, the pure joy that rested there. It was almost enough to wipe out the anguish that rested behind his eyes.

Almost.

She turned away from him, speaking into the radio.

"You have one chance, Angel Bob, just one. Surrender, right now, and I'll be kind. I can't say it'll be easy what'll happen, but I will do my best to make it painless," she reassured him. She raised her eyebrows.

"The angels have the same offer for you, ma'am. Surrender now and we'll let everybody walk out of here. We'll even put them on the beach outside, so that they don't have to trudge back through the moratorium."

She felt the Doctor's hand slip into hers, squeezing it tightly. She looked over at him to see that he was tense, but that he was staring up at the grav globe, a smile on his face.

"Father Octavian, give me your gun," he said to the bishop. This time, he didn't hesitate to hand it over to him. She rolled her eyes, knowing that it wasn't technically because she was a woman that he didn't hand her the gun, but the imagery of it still bothered her. Greatly.

She started to tell him that it wasn't necessary, because she was about to fix about three of their problems… before she realized that maybe it would be easier to do what she wanted to do if the angels were in a smaller area. She'd never done something like this before. Having to manually hunt them down in such a spread out area might make it more difficult to do what she wanted to do.

"Trust me?" he asked her, and in lieu of an answer, she kissed him before she pulled away. He had the goofiest smile on his face, and she watched, happy, as he looked back at River, asking her the same question. She answered the same retort as she'd done on the show, and so did the Bishop. "On my signal, all of you, jump." He demonstrated by jumping beside her, and she smiled but didn't comment.

"What signal?"

"You won't miss it. Anna, radio," he said, and she quickly handed him the radio. "Sorry, Angel Bob, you're on with the Doctor, now, and I'm here to tell you that you and your little _angel friends_ won't be laying so much as a _finger_ on her today."

"Is that the Agent's final answer?"

"It's the only answer you'll be getting," he told the angel, and he raised the gun.

"The angels would like to remind you that you're trapped, sir, and about to die-"

"Yeah, I'm trapped, and you know what, speaking of traps, this trap has got a mistake in it, a great big _whopping_ mistake."

"What's that, sir?"

"Didn't anyone ever tell you there's one thing you never put in a trap? If you're smart, if you value your continued existence, if you have any plans about seeing tomorrow, there is one thing you never, ever put in a trap."

"What's that, sir?"

"Me."

He fired.

#####

Anna had experienced some strange things whilst traveling with the Doctor. This was no exception.

Falling up as she was doing sort of felt like rolling backwards through water, except she was perpetually stuck on the part just before she managed to straighten out. They didn't have time for her to get her bearings, however, and she didn't, quickly opening the bulkhead door before she ordered everybody inside.

The crack no longer existed. It meant that things no longer had to be perfectly timed so that the angels were standing where they were so that they could fall in at the precise moment that they did. It meant she could run them through the ship faster than they ever had on the show.

They made it to the secondary flight deck before the emergency protocols even activated, and she instructed the soldiers to magnetize the doors before she instructed the Doctor to release the clamps so that they could get to the forest beyond.

"Do we have a plan?" River was the only one to ask.

She cracked a smile. "We have a thing."

"A thing?" River questioned. "What's that mean, a thing? What thing?""

"It's a thing in progress, respect the thing, moving out!"

What good timing it was that, just at that moment, the clamps released and the door slid upwards.

She laughed in delight before she was surprised when the Doctor's lips crushed her own. Moments later (and much too soon), he pulled back, her cheeks clasped in his hands. "Have I told you lately how _incredible_ you are?"

She smirked. "It could be said _more_ ," she told him. " _Especially_ when we're-"

"Anna, you _just_ said moving out!" she resisted the urge to flip the bird at River, instead looking at her to see that they were the only three still standing on the secondary flight deck. "I'm not above putting leashes on you two if it means keeping you alive, I promise you that."

She bit back the joke she wanted to make about leashes in a certain context. It was easier when the Doctor slipped his hand into hers.

They ran, then, away from the impending danger and the angels who threatened…

Well.

Everything, really.

#####

"Okay, perfect, you four, need you to be my eyes, Doctor, you take River and the good Bishop to the primary flight deck, see if you can't get that teleporter working to get us out of here."

"That's hilarious," he said, as he tried to tug her along. "Really, very funny stuff, but _unfortunately_ -"

She yanked her hand out of his and pulled back from him.

" _Unfortunately_ , we don't have _time_ to argue this," she told him.

"You're right, so we better not-"

She danced out of his reach.

He looked at her, and that frustration read as clear as day, but there was a building panic he couldn't quite conceal.

"Anna-"

"Doctor," she said. "If you have ever trusted me, then I need you to trust that getting to the primary flight deck is best for everyone here."

"What'll you be doing?" River asked.

"I already told you, it's a thing. Respect the thing. Move out."

She grabbed his hands in hers, searching his eyes.

"I'll see you soon," she promised.

In a fit of desperation, he grabbed her and pulled her to himself, smashing his lips onto hers once more. It was the same amount of desperation that he held on his face as he kissed her like he thought he might lose her.

When he pulled back, his eyes were squeezed shut.

"I'm sorry," he whispered to her.

He pulled away from her and he didn't look back.

She felt a twinge of something, but it was for the best, really. She would be fine, and-

Well, she'd have to get back to Leather Jacket, but that was fine because she was sure her future self would be more than enough to comfort this him. The only thing better than having her here was having a her that was actually correctly lined up linearly with him, time wise.

She watched his back before she gave a small wave to River. River looked at her troubled, but she quickly turned as well. Father Octavian was already over the hill, having taken her order as soon as she'd given it. Perks of being an agent of God, she supposed.

With that, she closed her eyes, teleporting Octavian, River, and the Doctor out to the beach, to meet the soldiers who had already been saved by her.

Saving the soldiers was as easy as making a copy of them to fool the angels with. While the men on the beach were sleeping, what was basically a glorified interface was wondering about, looking for the angel. The interface were indistinguishable from the real men, so the angels couldn't tell that they weren't actually killing anyone when they snapped their necks. The interface 'died', and the men woke back up on the beach where she'd left their bodies.

That left the four soldiers, who she focused on next.

She cut their timelines from the fabric of the universe, healed the scars left behind and unwrote any mentions of them from the universe completely, before she placed the men, complete with their intact timelines, into the alternate dimension she'd created.

It wasn't necessarily stupidity or lack of foresight. Anna'd just thought she had more time than she apparently did.

She didn't know the angels were in the forest until she felt a hand on her shoulder and, by that time, it was already too late.

The trap was closed.

The angels had won.

#####

Back in 1969, the Doctor eagerly stepped into his Tardis. He and Anna had been separated, which meant it was likely that a different angel had touched Anna to send her back to a different time.

Weeping Angels. Nasty creatures. He vowed to himself to steer clear of _them_ for the near future.

In the meantime, he smiled, setting up the take off sequence.

Time to find Anna.


	6. The Man who would be Restless

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello again! This chapter'll be a bit different (and MUCH shorter than normal), but I hope you like it anyway. Also, did y'all know you can add notes to the beginning AND ends of chapters? I thought it was telling me to pick one and I was like, um. Okay. But no. This site is awesome.  
> Chapter title based on, "The Man who would be King".  
> TW for gore at the end of the chapter (because I'm still new to AO3 and I want to cover myself on the warnings just in case).  
> I still don't own Doctor Who.

The Doctor was not immortal.

Someday, he would die, be it at the hands of one of his enemies or by beating the odds and dying a withered old man in retirement with nothing but stories to show for all his years of adventuring.

The Doctor was old, though, had lived a funny old life. Ten years was a pit stop to a man with a lifespan as long as his no doubt would be.

Yet, ten years felt like an eternity when looking for Anna.

He started with the obvious, which was tracking the time trail left by the angels, but when that amounted to less than nothing, he had to get creative. Into decade two, he started to get desperate enough that he even looked for places where supposed 'miracles' had occurred (and ended up taking down dictators and false gods with their false promises in the process).

He still had the occasional adventure inbetween (because he was the Doctor and that's who he couldn't help being), hoping all the while that Anna might perform her second miracle and come back to him.

Decade three came with a reality that the Doctor had to face. In his experience, not being found after three decades meant one of two things: Either she was dead, or she didn't want to be found.

The Doctor might not have been immortal, but Anna was. It meant that Anna simply didn't want to be found.

If ten years was a pit stop, six years was a blink of an eye. Despite the fact that he'd pictured them together forever, the time he'd had with Anna had been over in an instant. It was hard to let the possibility of forever drift off into the space he frequently traveled.

But, that was his life, wandering from place to place, doing what he could where he could and to the best of his ability.

For a while, that was his life, a constant revolving door of adventure after adventure, ignoring Gallifrey's calls all the while (Anna had eventually revealed to him that her cryptic comment about helping the buildings how to be buildings meant that she'd simply put the buildings back together the way that they had been. Helping people remember how to be people was where the real post-war reconstruction would lay, and he wanted no part of it. The time lords had turned into a different class of monsters in search of ending the Time War. Let them clean up their own mess for once).

Save for the company of the Tardis, he was completely and utterly alone.

Maybe that's the way it would've continued to be, if a woman called Rose Tyler hadn't stumbled so neatly into his life.

He could hardly call her a woman. Barely nineteen years old (and eighteen, actually, if his math were correct, considering she'd been born in 1987 and he'd picked her up in 2005. Unfortunately, lying about one's age was a fabrication he was well familiar with himself. If he told the humans he traveled with his actual age, he was sure they'd never stop staring at him, or at the very least, start drawing comparisons to old and dead civilizations, a fact he'd rather not think about. It was easier to say 900 and something and keep it at that).

As young as she was, she was still a wonder and a joy to travel with. She was the woman who so neatly closed up the hole that Anna's rejection of him had left behind. It was a bit more of a task to close up the hole the War had left, but she managed it, always there with a joke or a laugh or asking an amazing amount of questions. She was clever, and she was kind.

Most importantly, she understood what the traveling was really about: standing up and saying no when no one else would.

It was why he'd had to send her away on the Game Station. Rose Tyler was, in a word, fantastic. She would live to be so much more than just another casualty in this endless bloody war.

He'd done everything that he could think of to fix this situation. He'd been desperate enough to call the time lords (and that had been a conversation and a half) which had amounted to, "Not our problem, but do come back to Gallifrey if you survive so you can help us to rebuild," (not likely). His next idea was to use Anna's barriers, which were holding around Gallifrey. This kitschy little game station didn't have enough power to transport them, but he'd figured if he plugged the Tardis into it's systems, he'd be able to get enough power to do just that. But, the Tardis interfaces weren't compatible with the game station (or the more unlikely scenario that the Tardis was simply refusing to). The delta wave had been his final option, his last choice, and as soon as he'd seen how much time he actually had, he knew what he had to do.

It meant that he'd had no choice but to send Rose back home, to her mum and the extraordinary life she was about to have (no matter how much it shattered both his hearts into pieces to do).

The Doctor wasn't immortal, and he'd been so willing to die on that game station that when he first heard the sounds of the Tardis, he was sure that he was hallucinating. Yet, he turned back to see her, the beauty and the wonder and the magnificence of a rescue he hadn't even asked for.

He'd been more than happy to sacrifice this regeneration, because Rose Tyler was more than worth it. She was fantastic.

It took him until the moments before he regenerated to realize just how fantastic he'd been, too.

#####

This body was a fresh start, and he wasn't taking that for granted. It was the body that hadn't been touched by war or incredible beings or anything that might've broken his hearts. He shared every part of himself with Rose, not holding any of himself back.

They were in love, and he was sure to show her that in every way that he could.

He had his Tardis, he had his adventures, and he had his Rose. He honestly couldn't remember the last time he'd been more than just ecstatically happy. He felt fulfilled in every way that counted.

When one was so happy and fulfilled, it was easy to forget that happiness, just like everything else, came in ebbs and flows.

The reminder of it came in the worst possible way: the daleks reappeared in his life.

After everything that the daleks had already done, it felt like there was nothing else more that they could've taken from him. Of course, he'd fallen into the worst possible kind of human trap: thinking that forever meant for the rest of time.

They stole more than Rose. They stole the promise of their forever, and the life they could've had together.

Strictly speaking, it had been the wall between universes that had done that. Opening walls between universes was easy when one had the technology of the time lords, but he was sure that if they hadn't been willing to help on the Game Station, they'd be even less than ecstatic to help him simply because he'd lost his love.

He did love her. He loved her so much that, rather than turn from the space she'd nearly fallen into forever (save for the fact that her luck might've beat even his when Pete appeared at the exact right moment to catch her), he pressed his ear against it, hoping some irrational human hope that he would be able to catch some glimpse of the woman he'd lost forever.

He didn't, and anyway, it wouldn't have been enough. He vowed to himself that he'd find a way to reach her, if only to say goodbye.

The cost ended up being to burn up a sun to do it, which he'd made a joking remark about because she was right in saying that neither of them knew how to do this. After everything they'd done, after years of shared history, how were they just supposed to throw that away?

He was the Doctor. Passing through was what he did. But, Rose Tyler was unequivocally different. She'd picked up the pieces after he'd fallen, and more than that, their pieces fit together in ways he'd only ever found one other time. She was so utterly human, and he'd promised her forever and meant it because she'd given him what he always wanted: a person to share his life with, who understood what it meant to be the Doctor and was willing to bear the weight of that burden with him.

There was only one other woman who had done that for him, and she'd disappeared like smoke, never to be seen again.

Now, he was saying goodbye to the second promise of forever that he hadn't been able to keep.

His hearts shattered once more when he never got to finish the sentence that started with her name.

He wondered how many more times his hearts could shatter before he could no longer duct tape the pieces back together again.

Well, he wondered that for about thirty seconds before he was distracted with the bride suddenly appearing in his console room.

It was both a relief and a hindrance that he got to be distracted by Donna Noble. Loud, cheeky, screaming at the world (kept slapping him for no good reason) Donna Noble. She was clever and quick witted and wasn't afraid to put him in his place (i.e., slapping him), and she ended up heartbroken and betrayed because Lance saw her as nothing more than a stepping stone to better things. Those were the lowest types of people, in his opinion. Life was a rare and wonderful gift, and those who only saw human life as something to be used and abused in the way that Lance did were worth as much as they saw human life to be worth.

He probably could've blamed the genocide of the Racnoss on his heartsbreak. But, that would be a disservice to Rose and what she'd stood for. The reality of it was that he'd lived a very long life. The words he'd spoken on that Sycorax ship so long ago rang in his ears the same as the screams of the Racnoss children.

"No second chances. I'm that sort of man."

It was fitting that it was Donna who would stop him (and thereby end up saving him), so it was only fitting that she'd be his next companion. In his eyes, the deal was already made. He'd ask her, and she'd be more than thrilled to see more than her ordinary temp life had thus far allowed her to.

He was hesitant, but for Donna, he was willing to try again if it meant that he could get them both back on track.

If that were the truth, some part of him would've been surprised that she said no, that she spoke the words that she did, because it made sense, didn't it? He was a monster who'd nearly destroyed his own people (contrary to what Anna had said all those years ago), a monster who _had_ destroyed a whole race today, clouded by his rage and his pain that life and the universe were unfair, no matter how he tried to convince others (and himself) otherwise.

Her words rang in his ears the same as the sounds of the rotor moving up and down as he threw himself back into the vortex.

 _"Don't travel alone,"_ she'd said. _"Because sometimes, I think you need someone to stop you."_

No more distractions, now. Just the loneliness of all of time and space at his fingertips.

Utterly alone.

Or, so he thought, anyway.

His brooding session was interrupted by the sound of rattled breathing, and he frowned, dashing around the console.

"Woah."

His body stopped completely at what was at his feet, currently laying on the grating.

It was a humanoid, but that was the only thing that he could make out past the blood that covered them like a second skin. The skin itself was badly bruised, and more importantly (and disgustingly) was sliding off in places. Their hair, which was fanned out around them, was falling out in gentle tufts to the grating below. He immediately pulled out his sonic, kneeling down next to them.

"You're okay, you're okay, stay with me," he said, because despite the fact that he was sure that they were dead and these were nonsense platitudes anyway, he was the Doctor and that meant alive until proven otherwise.

He was proven correct in this analysis when the sonic came back with the terrifying reading that they were still alive. Terrifying because their skin was literally sliding off of their bones, their heart still beating, miserably though it might be.

"I've got you, you're safe, you're all right," he shot off, standing and quickly programming the Tardis to transport his latest visitor to the medbay (and somewhere in the back of his mind, he marveled at the odds that two people would mysteriously appear in his Tardis a handful of hours apart). They coughed and he looked down at them in time to see the blood spurting from their mouth.

He grimaced, starting to turn back to the console, but stopped himself just short of it when he saw their eyes opening.

His own eyes widened. He'd know those grey eyes anywhere.

"Anna?"

What was possibly for the final time, she passed out to the grating below.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There you have it, folks! Anna's alive!  
> … For now.  
> For the whole Rose thing, I stand by everything that I've said here. She was the perfect companion. Yes, she had her faults, but she was also human, and really, the only companion (in NuWho anyway) who intricately understood that the traveling isn't necessarily about sightseeing: it's about being the person who stands up when nobody else will, because that's how the universe (and the world in general) gets to be a better place.  
> For more canon proof of this, see Parting of the Ways in which she literally states, "It was a better life. And I don't mean all the travelling and seeing aliens and spaceships and things. That don't matter. The Doctor showed me a better way of living your life. [To Mickey] You know he showed you too. That you don't just give up. You don't just let things happen. You make a stand. You say no. You have the guts to do what's right when everyone else just runs away..."  
> All of the Doctor's companions are brilliant. I just feel like Rose fit the Doctor in ways that nobody else ever did.  
> Also, as a side note, I read somewhere that the poster in Aliens of London stated that her birthday was in 1987. Granted, it's in April, which means that she was just shy of being nineteen, so I could understand her saying she was nineteen, as well as the fact that she skipped a year so technically she would've been nineteen. It's all a timey-wimey mess, but there you have it.


	7. A Tale of Two Perspectives

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter title based on, "A Tale of Two Cities."  
> TW for gore, torture, and mentions of emotional abuse. Also, screaming. Lots of screaming.  
> I still don't own Doctor Who.

He was not all the king's horses, or all the king's men… which was probably why he was more successful putting humpty back together again.

It was more than a process. Anna kept falling apart. It wasn't just skin anymore; it was muscle and sinew and bone. Her natural healing process (which he'd seen more than once, and she'd let him study one time when they'd had a bit too much to drink) wasn't even able to kick in, because everything kept falling apart like putty.

He couldn't figure it out until he'd started to study her at a molecular level nearly a month in.

Her atoms and molecules weren't holding together, and it was more than likely a huge chunk. If nothing was stable, it meant that a good portion of her molecular structure had just up and vanished overnight.

Maybe this would've been a puzzle too great for human doctors, but he was a time lord. Keeping time together was what he did. It meant that replacing Anna's lost atoms and molecules would be nothing.

Luckily, using a bit of time lord science (and more of his brain power than he'd like to admit), he did what all the king's horses and all the king's men couldn't.

He could've collapsed out of relief when he saw her natural healing process finally kicking in. He pulled up a stool and sat by her bedside, reaching for her hand out of habit-

He paused, cautious of that particular activity, considering what had happened last time. He stopped, staring at her skin. He could see it literally knitting itself back together, little puffs of gold and cobalt disappearing in it's wake. He whipped his glasses on, leaning down and over her, running his sonic over it.

It read that this was her normal healing process, but he'd never seen anything like this, not even when they'd been traveling together. Perhaps this was her energy, and it took more to put her back together this time.

That begged the question of what had actually happened to her.

He leaned back out, wary of touching her at this stage, happy to simply watch the little show that was happening across her body as he pondered. Whatever had done this to her obviously knew about what she could do, and had been so unhappy with her that it made sure she couldn't put herself back together after it was done with her. He didn't even know how she'd found him (what with the state she was in), though it was pretty obvious why she'd sought him out. He was the Doctor. That's what he did. He fixed people.

He'd been more than happy to fix her. She'd saved Gallifrey and the universe at large, not to mention the people she'd saved when they'd been traveling together for those six years. Perhaps that's just what she did, he reasoned. Maybe he'd been right when she'd appeared on his Tardis all those years ago. She performed miracles and then she dashed off. It had just taken more time to shake him than normal because he was, well, him. That was also what he did. He was unshakeable. Maybe the angels separating them had just made her decision easier. She had a job to do, lives to save, places to be and all.

He hadn't had such kind thoughts, but they had never been unkind about her. They'd always been unkind about himself. It wasn't until Rose had come along-

His hearts hardened and he raised his eyebrows, clearing his throat before he stood. None of this mattered. What mattered was that whatever had done this to Anna might still be around to finish the job (assuming she hadn't already taken care of it, which in her state, was highly unlikely). He set the medbay alarms to alert him when the patient was awake, and when that was done, he moved to the console room to start the search.

#####

Time passed. He couldn't find the thing that had done this to Anna, and Anna didn't wake up. He bounced between sitting by Anna's side and doing repairs on the console, though the Tardis emergency protocols were more than happy to remind him of when he needed to eat and sleep (because, despite the fact that they were set when a Tardis' pilot was in danger of physical bodily harm via malnutrition or sleep deprivation, he was a time lord and knew that not nearly enough time had passed for this to be an issue). Still, the alarms would ring and he could find no way to shut off the alarms in his own Tardis. Not until he would either eat or sleep, at any rate.

He'd gotten so used to the alarms that he almost ignored the one signifying that Anna was awake.

The only reason he didn't was because it was two rings instead of the three he'd grown accustomed to and annoyed by. He nearly dropped a spanner on his toe before he took off at a dead run, finding the medbay nearer than he was used to moments later.

The medbay itself was dead silent, but Anna herself was barely shaking, turned on her side. At first glance, he didn't catch the fact that her hands were cupped over her ears, mostly because the blanket was pulled up over her chin.

"Anna?" he called, tentatively. He knew her, and knew she wouldn't outright hurt him, even in this state, but he wanted to be mindful of how fragile she might be. She was all powerful, and she'd nearly died (he was absolutely certain she would've done if he hadn't've been there to pick up the pieces). That was bound to take a toll on anybody. "Anna, it's-"

"I'm not afraid of you," she got out, through gritted teeth, barely turning back to hurl the words at him over her shoulder. He raised his eyebrows.

"Anna, it's the Doctor, it's okay-" he started.

"You have no power over me!" she shouted, before she curled up into a tighter ball, so tense that it was making her shake harder. "I'm not afraid of you! I'm not, I'm not, I'm not!"

"Anna, Anna, it's okay, Anna, listen to me, you're-"

His eyes widened as he realized what must've been happening, and he started over to her.

"Anna, it's okay," he told her, quietly. "Whatever hurt you, it isn't here. But, I am. It's me, Anna, it's the Doctor, and I promise I will do everything in my power to protect you. I've got you, Anna. You're okay."

She looked back at him.

The Doctor had seen a lot of things in his life, but in that moment, he wasn't sure he'd seen anybody with more hatred in their eyes than he did in Anna's.

He raised his eyebrows, too stunned to even hold his hands up to show that he wouldn't hurt her.

Surprise lit up her eyes, wiping away the hatred as if it had never been there.

"Doctor?" she asked, her voice croaking.

His eyebrows raised higher before, after a moment, he nodded.

"Yeah," he told her. "Yeah, Anna, it's me."

Her eyes relaxed, a hazy look eclipsing them. She raised her own eyebrows, searching him.

"Did you get rid of her?"

"Who?"

"My mom."

Her words were getting more slurred, and she seemed disoriented. Besides which, why would she think her mother was here? Perhaps it was just some leftover human instinct. He'd traveled with and been around enough humans to know that sometimes, humans just needed their mums.

"Your mum was never here, Anna," he told her. "But-"

"Oh," she said. "Good." She nodded, closing her eyes. "Good," she repeated.

He frowned, trying to figure out why that would be good.

His eyes widened as he put the pieces together lightning quick.

 _I'm not afraid of you_ , she'd said. _You have no power over me._

_You cannot communicate with me in that manner, because I will assume that you are like the person who abused me._

"Oh, Anna…" he barely breathed out, searching her prone form. After all these years, and he'd finally found out the culprit. It made him furious, but it was something to stew on later. Right now, he needed to keep Anna awake, to run scans and the like, to see if there was any cognitive impairments.

"Doctor?" she asked.

"Hm?" he replied, moving to her and sitting down next to her, using the keypad on the wall to run a few tests while he did this.

"Where are we?"

"The Tardis," he told her. "Can you-"

"The Tardis," she repeated.

"Yes, we are, can you-"

She frowned. "Where are we?"

He felt fear strike his hearts, but he pushed this aside. Of course she'd have some cognitive impairments. She'd just woken up after a coma. Short term memory was always the first thing to be lost and the last thing to be regained.

"The Tardis," he repeated, and he hesitated reaching over to touch her before he did just that, placing a hand on her cheek. He furrowed his brows when he realized that she was hot to the touch, but he was impeded from doing anything when she rolled over into the touch, his hand now trapped between her cheek and the pillow. Well, he said trapped…

Her face had smoothed out but she frowned once more.

"Where are we?"

"The Tardis."

"The Tardis. The Tardis. The…" she frowned even deeper, shaking her head. "The… The… It's the… It's…"

Tears started to roll down her cheeks and she nuzzled her cheek into his hand, grabbing his wrist and holding it to herself.

"Anna, it's okay," he whispered to her, quietly. "You're okay. You're safe, now."

"Safe. The safe. _You don't say saved, nutters say saved, you say_ …" she shook her head, nuzzling herself even deeper in. "S… S… 's a word, it's a word," she cried, her tears increasing in volume.

"Anna, just calm down, just relax, I've got you."

"I've got you, I've got you, I've got you," she repeated, but the more she said it, the more she sounded frustrated by it.

He let out a frustrated breath before he went to stand. She clung to his hand more firmly.

"The hand," she said, as he sat back down on the stool. "The hand… with the plan. The hand with a plan, because the hand has a plan, and it'll make me happy. It'll make me very… very… happy…"

She literally began to get cooler to the touch nearly instantly, pushing her cheek deeper into his hand. After a long moment, he realized that she'd fallen back into a peaceful slumber.

"Well, there's that, then," he mumbled, before he sat back, quickly pulling a book out of the inner pocket of his jacket. He'd no intention of getting himself out of her grasp. If it helped her to heal, who was he to argue?

#####

It didn't make her happy for long.

Anna was screaming.

It had started off as a normal nightmare, a few dissatisfied twitches of her facial features, but it had devolved into distressed murmurings and eventually devolved even further into simply screaming.

He'd tried to calm her, to soothe her, but her grip had gotten to the point that, were he human, his wrist would've broken underneath her grasp.

He'd nearly given in to just ordering her to wake up (unsure if it would even work but willing to give it a shot at this point), but he didn't get the chance. In the next instant, he was thrown back.

He hit the wall with an impressive oomph before he fell to the floor completely. He sat up, looking up to see that Anna was crying out in pain, holding her chest as she leaned over (though, truth be told, he'd no idea when she'd sat up in the first place).

"Anna-"

He got out his first word before her head shot up to look at him. Her eyes widened in terror and she scrambled back against the wall, shaking her head as she searched him.

"No, no, not that face," she whispered, and he couldn't help but frown at that, searching her. "Not- any other face, please, I can't- you can't- this is a nightmare," she told herself, looking down at the bed with the same wide eyed look. "I can change the face so that he's not the one hurting me-"

His hearts stuttered to a stop in his chest at the implication of just what she was saying.

"Anna, it's me," he said, quietly. "It's the Doctor."

"No, no," she whispered, shaking her head as she grabbed it in either of her hands. "No, I-I refuse to let that be the face that _hurts me like that_ in my dream, because-because I'll never look at him the same way again, it's a stupid self-defense mechanism, he would never hurt me like that, but if my brain tells me that he has then I have permission to push him away. I just need-"

He raised his eyebrows, realization and relief running through his veins that this face hadn't hurt her in his future and her past (the relief itself was overpowering, almost as much as a drug would be to a human).

"I'm in control, I'm in control-" she sobbed.

She stopped, completely, looking at the bed.

"It's a dream," she whispered to herself. "Good things happen in dreams. I just have to…"

She looked up, holding her hand out. He watched as a mini shower of sparks flew up into the air, like a waterfall falling up.

They abruptly came to a halt.

Anna started screaming once more before she passed out to the bed below, completely silent save for her ragged breathing.

He was to her in an instant, running scans and the like… to find that she was once again bleeding. When he touched her cheek, the skin slid away from the bone, and he instantly jumped back from her.

He cursed under his breath before he got to work.

#####

Time passed. He'd eventually deemed that creating a healing pod specifically for her would be necessary. She'd heal physically and then have nightmares which would set back her progress to her skin peeling off underneath his hand, because, for some reason, her mental state directly correlated to her physical healing.

That's why the healing pod wasn't just meant for physical healing, it was meant for mental healing as well. In the simplest terms, calming waves would be sent to her whenever the machine read that she was in distress, be it physical or mental.

He didn't like these means. The mind was a delicate thing, so naturally healing was the best option after what she'd gone through. There were no other options at this point. Her natural healing ability only dealt in the physical. The mental healing was entirely up to her.

The Tardis had never been so tuned up and he'd never been so bored as he was during that time. Trying to keep himself occupied and not thinking about… either of them was a challenge. It was made even worse by the fact that he still hadn't found whatever had done this to Anna, so he had to keep himself occupied some other way.

So, he had to resort to thoroughly exploring the Tardis, an activity he'd never truly undertaken. He was always in and out, with bits of downtime inbetween that was usually spent doing repairs he'd put off for centuries. Now that the Tardis was in the best shape she'd been since he'd first taken off with her all those years ago, he'd had nothing else to do but explore the ship he'd lived on for centuries.

He found the rooms he'd expected, and a few that he didn't. There were a few rooms that wouldn't open, no matter how much he tried to pick or sonic them (even when he reluctantly moved into coaxing and bribing the time ship, mindful of Anna's words and what had happened when Rose had... Well).

It was the rooms that he least expected to be interesting that he was interested by. There was a room that was strictly stain glass mosaic, covering the wall from head to toe. He stepped onto it delicately, pleasantly surprised that it didn't crack underneath his foot, no matter how much weight he put onto it. He walked in, looking around at it appreciatively... before he realized that there were images on the glass, and they were moving.

He kneeled down where he was, whipping on his glasses and pulling out the sonic. He started to sonic it before his eyes caught on the face that was staring back at him, laughing in delight.

"Rose," he whispered.

He looked closer to see that it appeared to be some kind of playback loop. He started to look over the other pieces of the mosaic to see that they were doing the exact same thing. Familiar faces, some long dead, some simply having moved on with their lives, were once again occupants of the Tardis, the moments that had somehow been captured in a piece of glass replaying happily for the world to see, but more importantly, for him to relive.

If the Tardis had memories, this is where it kept them.

He wasn't an idiot. The Tardis was sentient, that was fact. This room just proved that it was more sentient than he'd ever expected a time ship to be.

It helped him to learn a bit more about his Tardis. Not just the room with its' memories, but other rooms as well. There was an aquarium that he'd never seen before, with wildlife that he recognized from the time the Tardis had been flooded (he'd turned off an automatic safety feature and forgotten. That was, until he accidentally landed on the bottom of a sea and opened the door to have said sea suddenly flooding his console room. Now _that_ had been an adventure. He didn't remember the last time he'd had to hold his breath for so long). The sea creatures must've swum in and, because he'd simply emptied out the ocean from the time ship, the ship had stepped in and created a habitable place for them to live. He made a note to make a trip back so that he could let the creatures swim free.

This became routine for him: check on Anna, check on the search for whatever had done this to her, and when both proved futile, he would run about his Tardis, looking for rooms he'd never seen before (and making sure to steer clear of the 'memories' room. He hadn't stepped foot inside of it after he'd realized he'd lingered in there for nearly a day, watching the replays of days he'd had with Rose. As a wisened old wizard had once said, "It doesn't do to dwell on dreams and forget to live.").

It would, of course, be during this time that the alarms would sound. Anna was awake.

He traversed across the ship faster than he'd ever done, but he still wasn't fast enough.

When he reached the room, the healing pod was empty.

He cursed before he ran to the console room to search for her.

#####

She was standing at the door, and his eyes widened and he quickly held his hands out.

"Anna!" he shouted, before he forced himself to be calmer. They were floating in the vortex. She tried to open that door… In her state, he wasn't sure even she could survive something like that.

She whirled around to look at him. "Oh-… Oh," she said, and she blinked at him. "Oh, hey, sorry! I was aiming for a past you's Tardis. My bad," she said. She started up the gangway. "I'll just head back then, shall I?"

He turned his head to the side, confusion swirling through him.

"What?" he asked, his voice small even to him.

"Well, you know," she said, leaning against the console. "I was aiming for the leather jacket wearing you."

He raised his eyebrows. "What."

She barely smiled, putting her hands behind her back. "You're doing the 'what' thing and I'm not sure why?" she asked. "Easy peasy, pop back, head to the you that wears leather jackets." She tilted her head down, and there was a teasing look, of all things, on her face. "You still remember him, right? You're not getting senile in your old age?"

"Yeah," he said. "Yeah, I remember him. Spent thirty years as him looking for you." She frowned, but he stood up taller. "When you were nowhere to be found, got the message, you being done with the traveling and all." He sniffed, his own hands clasped behind his back. "It's fine. Now that you're all healed up-"

"No, hey, sorry, what?" she asked, searching him. "I don't- what?"

"Now you're doing the 'what' _thing_ ," he emphasized, before he went to the controls. "It's fine. Life as long as yours, powers like yours, got a duty to the rest of the universe." He looked up at her, nodding. "I understand," he laughed in a not really funny way. "Can't be me and not understand that," he muttered.

Some part of him expected to see Rose when he glanced up. He didn't, and his hearts just sank further in his chest. He frowned, clearing his throat.

"Uhm, but it's fine," he told her. He crossed his arms, turning to look at her, leaning against the console. "You're all healed up, and that's great, you're looking a lot better than you did when you first landed here- or you did, are you okay?"

Anna was starting to pale. He feared the worst before he watched as she shook her head, a small smile on her face, her eyes weirdly wide.

"I'm-I'm sorry, I don't… I physically don't understand the words that you're saying," she told him. "Like, I don't… get it?"

He barely frowned, searching her, moving his hands from being crossed over his chest to his pockets. "What is there to get?" he asked her. "You have a busy life and you were done with me being in it, and like I said, I understand. Not the first time I've moved on. Mind you, think it's the first time I've been moved on from, but either way, we're all fine, now." he nodded. "I'd be more than happy to run some scans, make sure that you're tip top shape before you head back out in the vast universe." He smiled widely. "So much to see and do in the vast wide universe."

She raised her eyebrows before she shook her head, speaking quietly. "I didn't…" she raised her eyebrows. "The-the angels transported me-" her eyes barely widened before she shook her head. "They-they transported me to your future, and then they took me and nearly killed me. I-I basically, I mean, they're taken care of, but when it was done, I was so drained of energy that- I mean, they drained me of all of my energy, so I-I had to do a thing to do what I did to them, but they're not an issue now, but basically, basically, what I'm trying to say is, I-"

He frowned, searching her. "You…?"

She bit her lip, searching him. "I didn't leave you," she told him, and he frowned even deeper. "I mean, it wasn't-it wasn't my intention, as-as soon as I escaped the angels, I-I aimed for the Tardis, for-for you. I-I thought that I was- I mean-" her face set and she looked down at the grating, before she looked up at him, her face set and determined. "Let me start from the beginning."

#####

It might've been an eternity before Anna'd found some semblance of herself.

It was dark and dank and she'd never felt more miserable in her life, her whole body pulsating with a pain she'd never known. When she came to, she heard voices.

"… angels want to know why your energy isn't working for them, ma'am."

She frowned, trying to open her eyes, but no matter how hard she tried, she couldn't get them open.

Maybe she was astral projecting, she reasoned. She tried to move one of her limbs-

Pain shot through her and she cried out, pushing herself further into the dirt, tears rolling down her cheeks-

Dirt. She was somewhere that there was dirt. Her arms were tied behind her back.

"Ma'am, the angels need you to answer their question, now."

She shook her head, dirt smearing across her cheek.

"What question?" she asked, her voice sounding pained and tearful, even to her.

"The angels need to know why your energy isn't working for them."

She frowned, searching the darkness. She'd had an answer for this, somewhere in the recesses of her mind. She knew this. Or, she had known it, before her entire being was made of pain.

"Ma'am?"

She shook her head. "I don't know," she whispered.

She felt pain tearing at her, at every part of her. She wanted to scream and she did, but it wasn't nearly for long enough or loud enough.

When it was over, she lay on the floor of whatever this was, breathing the dust into her lungs, and it hit her like a freight train.

"It's not compa-compatible," she lied to them, feeling something like relief falling through her that she'd remembered the answer. "My energy isn't compatible with- with your energy."

For a long moment, the only sound that could be heard was the sound of her harsh breathing.

"The angels have heard the stories, ma'am. Anna Monroe, the woman who can change the universe in the blink of an eye."

Honest to goodness terror filled her that they'd caught her out on her lie and would hurt her for-

… The angels.

The freaking Weeping Angels. The ones who…

She'd always had this theory that Weeping Angels were just about the only thing that could mess her up on a molecular level. She said theory, she meant feeling, and when she had a feeling, it meant something.

Apparently, she hadn't been wrong, because here they were, the angels messing her up.

"If your energy is not compatible, you will create energy for the angels to feast on."

She raised her eyebrows… before she snorted.

"Yeah, that's not-"

"Think carefully before you answer, ma'am," he told her, and she felt pain once again starting around the edges. She barely shook her head before she buried her face into the ground.

In a moment of weakness, she wished that the Doctor was with her.

She quickly erased any portion of a thought that involved the Doctor being in this with her (because in this state, with a thought like that, she might accidentally bring him here, through teleportation or him finding his way here or, goodness forbid, the angels bringing him here themselves). The angels would hurt him, and it would be so much worse. Timelines were nothing to an angel, and everything to a time lord. Mess with enough timelines and he might truly become as insane as he said he was. She had no interest in seeing that.

"Should the pain fail to motivate you, we have other means at our disposal."

Apparently, she hadn't erased the thought fast enough, because she was about ninety eight percent sure-

"There are stories that Weeping Angels once sent the Doctor back in time. We've no doubt that securing him so that you can be properly motivated won't be much of a task."

Okay. She was now one hundred percent sure that they were threatening the Doctor.

"You touch him and you will never see an _ounce_ of that energy, I promise you."

She felt the pain barely increasing, her body starting to shake from the effort of trying to be aware.

"The angels think you'll feel a little bit differently after you've spent some time hearing him scream."

" _The angels_ ," she bit out. "are right. I _am_ Anna Monroe, the woman who can change the universe in the blink of an eye." She laughed before she groaned into the dirt, continuing to speak. "Is threatening the man that I love _really_ the way that you want to play this?"

"The angels don't understand."

"I bet the angels don't," she told them. "Guess what? I can do whatever I want, whenever I want. More often than not, it is in search of helping people, of improving their lives, of saving them. Do you really think that I'll be more inclined to do that if you threaten the people that I care about?"

"Then why have you not helped us already?"

"Because I was giving you a chance! A chance to be better than you were yesterday, a chance to show that you are more than the lonely assassins of the universe!"

"That is all that we are, miss. That is all that we can be."

She wanted to laugh. Instead, her face crumpled.

"No, it isn't," she told them. "You can be so much more than this. Do you know what your ability to do to the timelines alone can do, to help people, to save them?"

"In order to help us, you're forcing us to become slaves to the universe at large?"

"I'm asking for you to be kind. Or, at the very least, find a way to get energy without destroying other peoples' lives in the process." She shook her head, letting out a breath. "Or, I was," she told them. "But you had your chance back on the Byzantium. I already gave it to you. Instead, you continued to threaten me and the people that I care about, the people that I love." She shook her head. "I won't stand for that, and it's not because this is personal, because it isn't. Truth be told, you were never meant to exit the Byzantium alive. The only thing I'm doing is putting the universe back the way that it should be."

Pain filled her so harshly that, when she came back, she was flat on her back, her bound hands underneath her, breathing hard.

"How do you plan to do that, ma'am? You don't even have enough energy to stand."

She barely smiled, but it was still sadly. "Oh, you poor, lost souls," she told him. "There's a reason that the church calls me God's Agent."

"We know the Church's lies, ma'am. You are not a product of any god."

She nodded. "You're right. I'm not. Because I am so much more than that. You want to know my secret, angels? I'm not bound by the laws of the physical. Unlike you, I don't need energy. Not even to do this."

What Anna Monroe was, was complicated. She didn't lie to the angels. She wasn't bound by the laws of the physical. She didn't need energy.

The very simplified version of it was this: A long time ago, she'd discovered that it didn't take energy to do anything that was deemed metaphysical or even magical. It was a mixture of two teachings: the first was the one that didn't come from the Matrix but had become popular through it, that there was no spoon. The second was what all alchemy was built on, the adage, "As it is in heaven, so shall it be on Earth," or more simply put, "As above, so below." At it's very core, it meant that the person who perceived the Earth shaped it (which, come to think of it, was basically what the Matrix taught as well. Perhaps it was only one philosophy after all).

The point was, if she believed that it didn't take energy to do something, then it wouldn't.

So, it didn't take any energy to change the angels on a molecular level. This batch of angels could no longer affect potential energy at all.

There was the fact to consider that she was still in tons of pain, and therefore, thinking straight was hard. She hadn't realized that she'd made it impossible for them to eat until she was already in the act of doing it, so in a moment of desperation, she'd made their energy source just standing in the sun.

It was the moment that cost her.

She slipped in her belief that it didn't take energy to do things just as she was placing them in an alternate dimension (whether it was the dalek's or the suvivors' dimension was anybody's guess), after she'd already erased any mention of this particular batch of angels from this dimension.

Anna didn't need energy, but the universe was energy. She didn't technically have to play by the rules, but existing in any dimension was easier if she had a physical body and energy to interact with. That was a finite supply, and she'd run more than completely out. There weren't any reserves left.

She could feel it, then. It, of course, being the entire universe.

She saw everything, felt everything, felt the way that it was all connected, energy flowing together before flowing away before exploding before becoming before creating.

The universe was primarily made up of ideas that only existed because people observed them. She could feel herself becoming one of those now, just an idea in the universe, to become part of the ever growing mosaic of the universe.

Anna Monroe was dying.

It was ironic that this would be the thought that snapped her out of it and would end up saving her. She was tired and she metaphorically glanced back at the spot where her physical body lay before she closed her eyes and concentrated on the thought that she was back in her body.

And, because she was already halfway an idea, it was easy to consider the idea that none of this took any energy to perform.

She got back to her body, but some part of her knew that it wasn't holding. Her lack of energy had unraveled her body; quite literally, she was falling apart at the seams.

She tried to heal herself but that was stupid and useless because she was no longer an idea, she was a too exhausted to panic but knowing that she should panic person whose every inch of her was falling apart at the molecular level. She opened her eyes and in the darkness, she pictured it: the image of safety and warmth and life and everything that was good in this universe.

She pictured the Tardis.

Moments later, the blackness was replaced with a very familiar ceiling, and as the feeling of comfort and warmth encased her, she fell to an unfamiliar (but welcoming and warm all the same) darkness.

#####

"So, you see, there wasn't really thought or time for aiming," she finished, after she'd parred down the story to terms that didn't involve the universe just being made up of ideas and how she'd nearly turned into one (though she barely remembered the sight of her own physical body, she remembered what a wreck it had looked. Because of that, she knew that he'd understood the seriousness of the circumstances without really delving into the mechanics of the universe itself. He was the Doctor. The day he understood how the way the universe truly worked was the day that he stopped, or so he'd said in an episode once. It's why she parred down the explanation, so that he'd continue to want to travel. So she told herself, anyway).

She was sitting on the jumpseat, her legs crossed as she looked down at the grating because she was unable to meet his eyes. She wasn't scared of him, though. She was scared of the thought that, because he'd been burned, even accidentally, he wouldn't want her around anymore. He'd done the same thing to Rose on Bad Wolf Bay. The thought of losing her twice scared her so much that he'd left her with a metacrisis version of himself.

(She actually went back and forth on this one a lot. Either he'd been scared to lose her or he'd been so in love with her that he did the best thing for her, despite how much pain it caused him. Giving her that human life to grow old with the man that she loved had been a sign of just how much he loved her. Or, maybe it was a combination of the two. To be honest, this was the Doctor. It could've been almost anything).

The silence stretched between them for a moment. "To be honest, there wasn't much time for anything, really. I-" she frowned before she cleared her throat. "Is now a good time to mention that I can feel your emotions? Because I'll tell you what, that's a lot of guilt wafting off of you right now."

The Doctor cleared his throat as he stood up from his position leaning against the console. When he moved away, he took the wafting guilt with him.

"Ta," he said, quietly.

"Of course," she told him. "But, erm, well… I mean, if- I-I guess I was aiming more for the Tardis than I was for you, so-"

"No, no, you don't-you don't have to explain," he reassured her.

She raised her eyebrows, wanting to look up at him but still feeling pretty crap and being unsure that she wouldn't just break down sobbing if she looked up at him to see the rejection sitting clear as day on his face.

Still, she spoke, because her days as an emotional coward were long behind her.

"The, erm, the stuff you said, about, about me being on my way, I mean, I-I don't, I don't want to, you-you know, I mean, I didn't mean to show up late so I- if you'll-if you'll still have me, you know, I'd-I'd- but I totally understand, I mean, it's your Tardis, so, you know," she cleared her throat. "Whatever-whatever you want."

Okay. Her days as an emotional coward were mostly behind her.

She'd been nearly turned into an idea by the universe and she was still recovering. Sue her if she was still feeling crap enough to not look at him directly and speak her mind coherently and precisely.

"Anna, I'm… I'm sorry," he started. "I'm so sorry."

Genuine surprise raced through her, her facial expression popping to that end nearly right away. She hadn't actually expected him to-

Well, no, it made sense, didn't it? She thought. He'd been through the ringer with Rose. Even without the loss of his home planet, losing Rose couldn't have been even remotely easy for him. Being rejected by Donna right after, being reminded of what he'd nearly done to Gallifrey… She felt her heart fall in her chest even further at the thought of what she'd just done, with the whole reappearing after he thought she'd abandoned him for centuries (maybe not centuries but it had to have been a good amount of years that had passed since she'd last seen him).

She wasn't sure that her heart could take hearing him say the rest of the words, so she cleared her throat, talking over him.

"Right," she said, and she stood before she swayed, falling back to the chair. How she was feeling was a bit like having pneumonia, minus the lung issues. All she wanted to do right now was crawl into a bed and sleep, and since she wasn't… It meant that falling back to the chair had started the waterworks, and her vision blurred as tears lined the bottom of her eyes. She tried to blink them away before she cleared her throat again. "Sorry, I'm still feeling pretty crap, so-"

"Anna, it's-"

"No, no, I get it," she told him, nodding. She was starting to feel worse and she feared she might need his help getting to a bed. That would just be pouring salt into an already gaping wound. "I understand, I erm, I'm still feeling pretty crap so would it be all right if I kipped in the Tardis before I headed out?"

Her voice cracked against her will and she closed her eyes, turning to look away. She tried to covertly sniffle, but not even she'd figured out a way to do that (and she could do literally everything under the sun).

She felt a burst of shock coming from him and she criss-crossed her legs on the jumpseat, still staring down at the grating as she ordered herself not to outright burst into tears, even if they were forming faster than she was able to blink them away.

"You just said you wanted to… I don't understand."

She shook her head. "No, I get it," she told him. "You've just- you've just- and it's been so many years, I, erm-" she shook her head again. "I'm sorry, I can't."

She burst out into tears, folding her face neatly into her hands as she sobbed.

She tried to explain that this was how she got when she was sick, completely and vulnerably emotional, but all that ended up coming out was, "I'm-I'm sor-sorr-sorry-"

She felt comfort wafting through the air in front of her and she started to accept it gratefully before remembrance of the situation wafted through her mind and she quickly blocked out that part of herself. It would only be harder in the long run, she knew. It was better to make a clean cut right now.

"Anna, look at me."

She shook her head, curling up into a smaller ball.

"Then listen," he said. His voice was fierce and he spoke with certainty. "You have absolutely nothing to be sorry for. You took care of Weeping Angels and you nearly died doing it."

She sobbed harder.

"Anna, I'm sorry for being so daft. I thought that you couldn't die, and so when thirty years passed and I didn't find you anywhere, I just assumed, like a complete idiot, you didn't want to be found. I'm sorry, I'm so sorry, but I promise you, if-if that's what you want, if you want-if you want to be here, to travel with me, then-then I would be _more_ than delighted."

She looked up at him through squinted, tear stained eyes. "Re-real-really?"

"Really really," he told her, and from what she could see of his face, she saw nothing but that earnestness resting about him.

She couldn't even do anything except for lean down and wrap her arms around him.

"Okay, I've got you, I've got you," he told her.

Some time passed before she managed to get herself together enough to ask, "Can you-can you carry me to a bed? I'm exhausted," she told him.

"Course," he replied, easily.

He disentangled them from each other before he leaned down and picked her up.

"Running a bit of a fever as well," he noted, after his hand touched bare skin.

She leaned her head against his chest, hearing his dual heartbeats fluttering away. "It's-it's what happens when you almost get turned into an idea."

"Sorry?"

She snuggled deeper into his chest. "Never mind."


	8. In Search of Lost Health

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter title based on, "In Search of Lost Time."  
> Still don't own Doctor Who.

Like a sick human, Anna slept. A lot.

As a result of this, they spent a lot of time watching movies, Anna curled up against his side. The first time it happened, she started to lay down on his chest before she jumped back like she'd been burned.

"Sorry," she apologized, before starting to lay on the other side of the couch.

He could feel her misery floating off of her as she started to relegate herself to sit as far from him as possible. Maybe it was a leftover human instinct, but Anna found physical interaction comforting, especially in times of distress.

He tried to search through his mind why she'd be forcing herself to sit so far away… before he remembered that their relationship had been physical and maybe, now that she'd been absent for so long, she thought it wouldn't be appropriate to be so close.

"No, Anna, it's fine," he said, opening his arm to let her lay against his chest.

She looked at him uncertainly, starting to open her mouth. She bit her lip before she nodded, moving closer to him and laying against his chest.

About half an hour into the first movie, he realized that maybe it was also because of Rose, and she didn't want to cross that delicate line.

Did she know about Rose? She couldn't have, if she'd genuinely teleported from nearly being killed by the angels to this moment. He didn't want to ask, though. If she didn't know, he would have to explain who Rose was, and he had no interest in delving into that particular subject.

The thought of thinking about Anna in that context again hadn't even crossed his mind until that moment, and it was a thought he quickly pushed away. The thought of losing Rose was painful enough. Trying to add in the complications of what he and Anna might've possibly been to each other in that moment in time wasn't something he was delving into, either.

So, for now, he allowed himself and Anna to relax against each other, two friends who were helping each other to heal.

#####

She slowly got her strength back. It was nearly two weeks later that she was able to hold a coherent conversation for longer than two minutes.

"I've been thinking," she started nearly a week after that, as she ate from a bowl of unnamed cereal she'd found in the Tardis cupboards. He didn't remember the last time he'd stocked up, but human cereals lasted years all on their own and that aside, he was starting to think the food would keep simply because the Tardis wanted it to.

"Don't strain yourself," he joked, and he looked back at her from his spot at the stove, making an omelet for himself (but not for Anna, because she'd declined his offer).

She looked confused for a moment by his comment before realization crossed her eyes and then she stuck her tongue out at him. He smiled amiably before turning back to his food.

"So, yes, I've been thinking about why I didn't appear in your Tardis."

His hand froze, the spatula frozen mid-flip. "Why would you be thinking about that?" he asked her, regaining composure quickly. "There's no point, anyway. You didn't and that's that."

"Doctor, I ended the Time War," she told him. "It should've been a simple matter-"

"But it wasn't," he pointed out.

"But it _should've been_ ," she emphasized. "I should be back there and I'm not, and why?"

He furrowed his brows, glancing back at her. "I thought you'd be one of the only companions I didn't have to explain the mechanics of time to," he pointed out.

It was moments after he said it that he realized what he'd said, relegating her to a simple companion. Anna was so much more than that.

But, right now, maybe that's all that she could be. Just another companion along for the ride. Thinking about her in any other capacity would be too painful.

She threw him a look. "I stopped the freaking _Time War,_ " she pointed out to him. "Why didn't I get back to you?"

He frowned, looking back at her more fully to signify that she had more of his attention. "Are you asking why you didn't end up rewriting my timeline because you _did_ get back to me?"

He'd never thought about that, her getting back to him and simply rewriting time, because she was right, she had stopped the Time War, thereby rewriting the future that wouldn't come to pass. Maybe-

But would he still end up traveling with Rose, were that the case?

"I don't-" he started, about to tell her that her heading back in time wouldn't be worth the risk if it meant he'd never travel with Rose. Every second he'd spent with her was worth the pain of losing her, a thousand times over. He'd lost her, but he'd loved her, and that had made the pain worth it.

"I mean, I wouldn't technically be rewriting your timeline," she told him, and he raised his eyebrows. "I mean, I would," she corrected herself. "But I could do it without damage to this timeline. Whatever had happened while I was… away," and here, she shifted uncomfortably, "still would happen."

He frowned. "How do you know-" _Really?_ Her facial expression read before he could even finish his sentence, and he held up his hands. "Fine- Oh," he said, glancing at the spatula. He quickly turned back and put the burner on a low simmer before he turned back to look at her. "… What were we saying?"

A teasing look crossed her face.

"You really are getting forgetful in your old age, aren't you?"

When had she started telling old age jokes? This had never been an issue with his previous regeneration, and he looked younger in this one.

"You're one to talk about old age, all things considered," he shot back at her, and she furrowed her brow, searching him.

"What do you mean?" she asked.

"You know, you being thousands of years old yourself- We were talking about you getting back to me," he suddenly remembered.

He noted the suddenly troubled look on her face, but she pushed it aside a moment later.

"Yeah, well, so, basically, I can do things without messing up your timeline in the slightest… when I really set my mind to it, and before you ask, the Time War is a separate beast entirely and would've taken, like, hundreds of years to do the corrections I would've needed to do to keep your timeline intact the way that I'd seen it on the show."

"Show- Oh, the television show. Right. Blimey, haven't thought about that in a while," he muttered, before he turned back to the burner, grabbing his omelet and depositing it on a plate he pulled from a cupboard, which was more conveniently placed than most things in the Tardis kitchen… though come to think of it, the kitchen was a lot more organized than he remembered it being.

"My point being," she continued, and he frowned at that as he pulled out a fork. "that I could, theoretically speaking, keep your time with… Erm. Well, you know, who you traveled with intact," he frowned, "while I went back and did my thing, or at the very least-"

"Hold on, you know about… about Rose?" he asked.

She raised her eyebrows, looking over at him, frowning-

Before realization of all things swept through her eyes.

"Yeah, I do," she said. "But I shouldn't. Why do I?" she frowned, looking down at the table.

"You know everything else," he muttered, still standing there, awkwardly holding his plate and his fork.

"Yeah, but remember what I said? I don't know everything all the time. What would be the point in that?" she asked, as he finally kicked himself into gear to sit down at the table. "Knowing everything all the time would just make life boring. You know. It's why you travel, to learn things and see sights and all that good stuff. So, why do I know about… because I shouldn't," she said. "It's not information that I purposefully sought out, and that aside, this leads us back to my point about why I'm talking about my heading back to you in the first place."

"Okay. So?" he questioned, raising his eyebrows as he dug into his omelet.

"So," she said. "If I have the ability to keep your timeline intact when I travel back, then why did I never do so?"

"Because you haven't done yet," he pointed out.

She raised her eyebrows. "Oh. Okay." She sat back. "Fair point."

He raised his own eyebrows before he furrowed them. "That wasn't your point?"

"Well. No," she said. She looked over at him. "I. Um. Well, Imma do that now, then," she said.

He raised his eyebrows. "What, now?" he asked. "Well, what'll happen?"

She shrugged. "Maybe nothing," she told him. "Because that was my point."

"I don't…" he started.

She turned away from him, closing her eyes-

She immediately fell out of her chair.

"Anna?" he asked, alarmed, kneeling down next to her. She was clutching at her chest, shaking. "Anna, what's wrong, what's happening?"

"Ugh, I was right," she said, quietly, and tears began to stream down her face as she bit her lip. "I don't have enough energy to do what I was talking about." She looked up at him. "That's what I was talking about, why I could never head back. I've lost too much energy- urgh, help me to the medbay, I need painkillers, stat."

"All right, all right," he muttered, picking her up bridal style without even a thought.

#####

"Does this mean that you'll never be able to head back in my timeline?"

She raised her eyebrows, laying down on a bed in the medbay. He'd given her painkillers, but she'd declared that moving was an activity that was too hard, so there they were, still in the medbay.

"Dunno," she said, softly, before she shrugged, not looking at him as she drew patterns into the wall with her fingers. "The angels took a lot- the angels took _all_ of my energy, and that's no small feat. Apparently, it takes time to-" she smirked, "- _for_ that energy to _regenerate_ ," and here, he rolled his eyes. "Maybe it never regenerates to the level that I had it at before."

She got quiet, then, a more serious look eclipsing her face. She spoke the next words softly.

"Maybe I just stop feeling guilty for not heading back in your timeline and realize there is no point anyway, since it all worked out for the best."

He frowned. "What do you mean, 'stop' feeling guilty?"

She smiled slightly, but it was a drastic difference from when she'd smiled just now. "I can do anything in the entire universe and I couldn't head back to make it so that you weren't alone?"

"But that's not your fault," he pointed out. "The angels-"

"I think this conversation nullified the whole 'angels fault' argument for the rest of time."

"But it doesn't," he told her. "It isn't-"

"Doctor, I'm 30 years old." There was a smile on her face as she looked at him, tears lining her eyes. He felt bewildered, and not just by her statement. Sure, Anna had been emotional at the drop of a hat lately, but this? This was sudden, even for her lately. "Or, last time I checked, anyway. Who knows how long I was with the angels for? Though it probably wasn't more than a few hours, considering that they would've found out pretty quickly that the energy wasn't working for them, so, yeah, I'm 30 years old."

He frowned, leaning forward. "What kind of years are you using?" he asked her. "I'm assuming it's not human. There's a planet where nights last 24 years, so if you're judging by that, then that would make you-" he started to do the math, but she interrupted him.

"Thirty human years old," she told him.

He barely smiled past his frown. "What?" he asked.

"I'm thirty human years old."

He simply frowned, now. "What're you talking about?" he asked.

"I'm thirty human years old," she repeated, like she were a robot repeating a phrase that it had been programmed to speak.

"No, you're not," he told her, before it came to him. She must be confused, because of what the angels had done. "Anna," he started. "You're nearly three thousand years old-"

"I have no idea _where_ you got that number-"

"From you," he told her. "You told me that you were three thousand years old-..." he frowned, looking up. "Huh. Guess I don't remember you saying that. Who was that, anyway?"

"I have no idea, but I _promise_ you, I know my own age, and I'm telling you, I'm thirty _very human_ years old."

He raised his eyebrows, leaning back. "I don't understand," he told her. "You can't be."

"Why not?"

"Because-because you can't be! Because, in order to _be_ thirty human years old, it would have to mean- I mean, the level of power _alone_ that you'd had to have been _born_ with- and I mean, how did that work? Here's two year old Anna, _do you know what I'm gonna do today? I'm gonna manifest whatever I want, which isn't much, considering that I'm two years old and two year olds don't want much of anything, but I'll manage it, because I'm Anna-_ and I mean, _blimey,_ what did your _parents_ do- _"_ he gasped in realization, his eyes widening, and looked over at her. "Your _mum_!"

Her own eyes widened in an emotion that blew straight past surprise. "What?" she asked.

"Your mum," he repeated, pieces clicking together that hadn't before. She was closer to the abuse she'd suffered than she'd _ever_ let on, and yes, that _did_ make a difference. Time and distance made a difference in a person's healing, but he was sure that she hadn't had _any_ time to heal before she'd come here. "I don't-I don't- I don't understand, Anna, just- what?" he asked, at the look on her face.

She opened and closed her mouth before she searched him. She seemed lost in thoughts of her own, before her eyebrows furrowed and she spoke in a small voice. "How do you know about my mum?"

"What?"

"My mum," she said. "How do you know about her?"

He looked at her, astounded. "Does that matter?" he asked her. "You've just told me that one of the most- _the most_ powerful being I have ever met is thirty human years old- You were twenty four when you first came here? Anna, what-"

"It's important to me- it _matters_ to me," she corrected herself.

"Anna, what-"

"How do you know about my mum?" she demanded of him, before she flinched and laid back on the bed, breathing hard.

"Are you-"

" _Just answer the question_ ," she hissed at him, looking at him fiercely.

Surprised by the emotion suddenly laying on her face, he did just that. "Because you said something when you were sick, about your mum having been there and that you didn't want her there. Didn't take, well, me, to put those particular puzzle pieces together." He frowned. "Why does that matter so much to you?"

Relief overwhelmed her as she laid back on the bed, absentmindedly rubbing at her chest as she did so. She shook her head. "Thought you'd gotten a glimpse into my mind," she told him.

He raised his eyebrows. "You're avoiding the subject," he told her.

"I'm the one who brought up the subject, you-" she started, before she grit her teeth, forcing calm to run through her once more. She let out a calming breath before she spoke. "My answer is that I still don't entirely know how I acquired these powers. Just that I knew things that other people didn't. I finally found a way to… use them to their full potential when I was 25. I pretty much came straight here after I did."

He frowned. "You said you were thirty, which means you would've been 24 when you came here."

"What- Oh, no," she said. "Guess I'm 31 years old, now."

"I don't…" he started, before he shook his head. "Anna, why are you bringing this up now?"

She shook her head. "Because I'm not some thousands year old being. I'm just a 31 year old human who's still affected by the trauma of what was done to her."

A thought he'd had what could've been a lifetime ago popped into his head (a thought he'd had more than one of Anna's lifetimes ago, he mused, though he was still reeling from this new information). Staring at Anna in the Tardis after their fight in the carnival, he'd had the thought that Anna was broken in a way that even she didn't know how to fix.

Maybe it was because she hadn't lived long enough to know how scars healed.

Maybe it was more than that, he realized, a moment later. Maybe it was that she still felt like it was her fault, what had been done to her. Maybe she wasn't healing herself because she felt like she didn't deserve it.

Even with what she'd said, Anna had never let the trauma of what had been done to her affect her behavior (minus the carnival incident) in the six years that they'd traveled together. He'd no idea why it was affecting her on such a large scale now, but that didn't matter. The only thing that mattered was helping her, and that started with making something very clear.

"Anna, I'm not cross with you for not making it back to me."

He knew this was the right thing to say when tears instantly started filling her eyes as she searched his face for every bit of sincerity and earnestness that she could.

"I promise, I swear, I am in no way cross with you for you not being able to make it back to me, because it wasn't your fault. Moreover, I _wasn't_ alone. I had a fantastic life, with a fantastic woman, while you were away, and what's more, now that you're back, I want you here, with me, so that I can have a brilliant life traveling with you." He searched her, the same that she was searching him, gently reaching out, cupping her cheek in his hands. She was a bit warm to the touch, but he merely made a note of this as he continued to speak. "I don't care that you're thirty one human years old. You're still the..." he looked up to find the word, but couldn't, so he settled for using all of them. "Amazing, brilliant, wonderful, _kind_ person that I met all those years ago, because, despite the fact that you could be destroying people and tormenting people and hurting them, you use your abilities to help people. You use them to be kind. Do you know what that makes you?"

"What?" she croaked.

"One of the best people in the entire universe."

She sucked in a breath. "Really?"

"Really really," he told her.

She broke down sobbing, throwing her arms around him.

"I've got you," he said. "Sh, I've got you. I've got you."

He wouldn't know it, but the Doctor had done more than just placate her. He'd helped to heal a wound that had been present for a very long time.

It didn't fix the energy problem, but it did fix some part of Anna that had been so very broken.

For now, it was enough.


	9. Dalek

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Did anybody order a pile of angst? No? Nobody? … I'll just leave this here, a whopping 10,000 words of angst.  
> TW for torture  
> I still don't own Doctor Who.

"You said the Tardis pulled us of course?"

She was stepping out the doors, which she'd done before he'd had a chance to stop her.

They'd only recently begun traveling again, now that she'd gotten her strength back up, and he was tetchy when it came to her personal safety. They'd found out the hard way that her healing ability was still slow to come back (she'd been cutting carrots (which had been her first mistake. Who liked carrots?) and he'd bumped into her and because she had the grace of a small human child, she'd ended up dropping the knife on her arm. The Tardis apparently liked sharp knives (he'd sworn up and down he barely even used them), so it had cut her deep and instantly. That had been a lot of blood and a lot of panic from the time lord, who'd instantly rushed her to the medbay).

The point was, now that they'd begun traveling again, he had a few rules which amounted to: don't wander off, try to avoid getting hurt, and she never got to exit the Tardis first. Minus the last one, it was pretty standard issue when it came to being a companion. That's what she was, now. A bonafide companion.

It wasn't that she didn't enjoy it. It was that she missed feeling useful. She hadn't been much to sneeze at before she'd figured out how to utilize her full powers, and now, with the angels having drained her energy, she was back to basics.

The option always remained that she could use the 'it doesn't take energy to do anything' principle, but that was reserved for emergencies only. She didn't have to play by the rules of the universe, but she'd genuinely no idea what would happen if she tried the 'no energy' thing too many times. Besides which, she'd nearly been turned into an idea of the universe, and she wasn't excited about the prospect that she might do if she tried again.

The point was with everyday adventuring, she was sort of useless.

She hadn't had much of a chance to prove that wrong, either. They'd mostly been sightseeing, even heading back to visit The Falls out of what the Doctor claimed had been nostalgia, but really what she was sure was actually him trying to pick low key sights to keep danger to a minimum.

It made no sense on principle, considering that danger was his life and every companion he traveled with had to understand that on an intricate level.

Maybe it was because he'd just lost Rose and he didn't want to lose her, too.

Whatever the reason, it was as annoying as it was frustrating. Hence why she'd stepped out the doors before he'd had a chance to.

"No, I said something pulled the Tardis off course," he corrected her, though she could hear that hint of annoyance in his voice, that tang of it bouncing off her empath sense.

She'd been an empath for as long as she could remember, though she hadn't understood that she could feel people's emotions and honestly just assumed that it was the anxiety making her believe that she could, so that she knew better how to appease them. Well, that and the PTSD because emotional abuse did that to a person. She'd only started to realize that how she felt around other people was not how everybody felt around other people about a year before she'd traveled to the Whoniverse. She was better able to get a handle on it during that time, embracing it more and learning to read people (though it didn't help that Covid-19 had started creeping into society around the same time and, as such, made it harder to read people because there weren't really people to be _around_ ).

Her point being that being an empath was part of being back to basics. Being an incredibly powerful being had it's perks, she supposed, that even in her most 'basic' of states included being an empath, among other things.

She ignored his annoyance in favor of looking around at her surroundings.

It appeared to be some kind of museum. Lined up in two neat rows were the exhibits that sat in front of them, all of different-

Her eyes landed on the Slitheen arm and her eyes widened.

Van Statten's museum of horrors.

"We have to-" she started.

Her 'feelings' were something else that was part of the basics package, and it had been coming back in full force now that she'd had some time to recover. She started to tell him that they needed to get out of here because of timelines and all that (because this was obviously before he and Rose had ever been here), before she had a feeling that them leaving now would lead to something horrific happening.

Something bad already was happening, she realized. Things were moving too slowly, and they needed to get sped up.

Feelings were hitting her fast and hard, and she whirled around on him.

"Push one of the exhibits over, now," she demanded of him, hoping that her tone properly conveyed the urgency she felt.

"What?" he asked. "Anna-"

" _Now_!"

Maybe she hadn't explained the feelings thing to him, or that she was getting them back now that she had recovered. Maybe that's why he needed to be told twice for him to rush over to one of the exhibits, pushing it over.

Or trying, anyway.

It didn't matter. It did the trick and, a moment later, armed guards followed the sounds and the flashing of the red alarms (not mauve, as she'd learned actually was the universal color of danger).

"Sorry," she said, lightly, not realizing that the Doctor had slotted himself partially in front of her until she realized she couldn't see all of the armed guards. "Is this area off limits? We were looking for the restrooms."

Unhappiness wafted off of the Doctor, but there wasn't much that she could do about that now. As the guards led them away, the only thing she could hope for was that she hadn't just created a paradox of massive proportions.

#####

"Do you-"

"Anna-"

The Doctor was very unhappy right now, but she didn't care.

"Do you-" she started, but this time, he talked over her.

"You knew that would happen, didn't you?"

She rolled her eyes, knowing that they wouldn't get through her questions unless she answered his questions first.

"I did, yes."

"First of all, how, second of all, why?" he asked. "You know your healing ability isn't-"

They were speaking in fairly low voices right now so that the guards escorting them couldn't hear them.

"My feelings are back," she interrupted him.

"Your _feelings_?" he asked. "What the hell does that even mean, your _feelings_?"

She raised her eyebrows. "My feelings. You know. My feelings. When I have a feeling that I have to do something or something bad… or unfavorable will happen."

"We talked about this," he told her. "It's not feelings, you've got a very _basic_ version of time sense-"

"Yeah, except I'm not a time lord so it's not time sense, it's feelings, shut up," she told him.

He let out a frustrated breath. "Fine," he said, careful not to put his hands in his pockets which, for this regeneration, was basically impossible. It meant his hands were very fidgety at this current moment in time. She'd laugh, but it wasn't the time or the place. "Why did you do it, then? If you knew that guards would come out-"

"Technically speaking, I just knew that you had to push over the glass case, I didn't know that armed guards would surround us, but even if I _did_ \- never mind, do you recognize this place?"

"Even if you did, you still would've done, even though your healing ability still isn't completely active?"

She rolled her eyes up to the ceiling. "Oh my goodness, Doctor," she said. "Traveling with you is dangerous-"

"That's not an excuse to summon armed guards while you're still this vulnerable."

She raised her eyebrows, looking over at him. She was starting to get pissed off. "Okay, first of all," she told him, "you're not in charge of me-"

"You're _my_ responsibility," he told her, his face set and serious and, if she looked closely enough, she could see the tiny bit of pain resting in the corner of his eyes. "Anything that happens to you, that's on me, and don't tell me that it isn't. The only reason that you're here-"

"We really don't have time for this," she told him, and at the wide-eyed, almost angry look his face had morphed to into, she shook her head. "We don't, just tell me if you recognize this place."

He raised his eyebrows. "What, a _random_ museum in a _random_ corner of a _random_ country? No, can't say I do!"

"It's Van Statten's museum," she told him, and he looked into her eyes before he turned away, almost… disgusted with her? "Seriously? Quadruple billionaire? Not ringing any bells?"

"Is that supposed to be impressive?" he asked her, once again twitching as he went to put his hands in his pockets, but not. "The fact that he's a quadruple billionaire is supposed to mean something to me?"

She raised her eyebrows. "Seriously?" she asked. "Nothing?"

"Do you suddenly think that I care about money, or something?"

"No, no, the-the name, Van Statten, he's-"

"Not my concern," he said. "But you are. And, as long as you are my responsibility, you _cannot_ just _throw_ yourself into situations where there are _armed guards_ -"

"You were supposed to have met him when you traveled with Rose."

That, he stopped at, looking down at her so fast that she was surprised he didn't get whiplash.

"Come-come again?"

"Van Statten," she repeated. "You were supposed to have met him when you were traveling with her. Are you sure that you didn't and you're just having a hard time remembering because you're being thick and trying to dictate how I should live my life?"

At that, he threw her a bitter look.

"We never met a Van Statten," he told her, his mood suddenly a lot more brooding than it had been. "And as for me _dictating_ -"

"No, shut up," she said.

This was bad. This was bad on a monumental scale.

Okay, but no, it was fine, because she could just-

Except she couldn't.

All of these people were supposed to die.

Even if she'd had all of her energy, something in her sensed that she wouldn't have been able to save them. These people, all of them, were meant to die. There wasn't anything that she could do about that.

But, after it was done, they could transport the dalek back to the dimensional barriers that surrounded Gallifrey, put it back with the other daleks. If it even wanted to live.

But, the only reason it had changed so drastically was because Rose had touched it. Rose had been in a different league. What was she? Just… useless.

She ran a hand down her face. "Jiminy Christmas," she whispered.

"What?" he asked, sounding irritated.

Every other look vanished off of his face to be replaced with surprise when he looked over at her and saw the serious look resting on her face.

"This just got a whole lot more complicated," she told him.

" _Yay_ ," he said, sarcastically, with a look to boot as he turned away from her.

Was it her fault that she laughed?

She quickly wasn't laughing at the remembrance of the fact that they were surrounded on all sides by people that were about to die.

"Ugh," she said, letting her face fall into her hands.

"What?" he asked her.

She shook her head. "I'll tell you later," she replied, not wanting to share the fate of the people that surrounded them while they were still in earshot (because the rest of the conversation had been nonsense to them, but people tended to care about whispered conversations a lot more when it was about them).

Luckily, they had reached the room (or more likely, the cell) that they were to stay in until they could be dealt with by Van Statten himself. It was empty, all four walls concrete and completely impenetrable. They put them in the room and then closed the door behind them before they both heard it bolt shut.

The Doctor started to explore the room, sonicking everything, while she sat down in a corner.

"Hey," she said.

"Busy," he replied.

She rolled her eyes. "They're taking us to Van Statten any minute. Come here." She pat the empty concrete space next to her.

He raised his eyebrows before he let out a heavy sigh, walking back over to her before he slid down the wall, sitting down next to her with one leg propped up, the other one stretched out.

She looked down at her lap, speaking in a quiet voice so that the cameras wouldn't pick up what she was saying.

"All of these people are about to die," she told him, bitterly, "and I can't do a thing to stop it."

"Course you can," he told her, and she frowned before she looked over at him, to see that he was doing the same, searching her eyes. "Just tell me how they die and I'll stop it."

She frowned, shaking her head.

"None of these people are supposed to live," she told him, quietly.

He frowned, searching her. "Maybe your time- _feelings_ ," he corrected himself, pulling a face, and she rolled her eyes. "isn't that accurate right now, because I'm telling you right now, time is in flux."

She furrowed her brow, searching him, confused.

"None of these people have to die."

"No, but-" she raised her eyebrows, realization drawing through her. "Oh…"

"What?" he asked her, and she frowned as she explained.

"I can… manually tune my feelings to different circumstances," she told him, not looking at him and waving her hands about for emphasis. "In this dimension, they're tuned to the television show, i.e., only saving certain people to keep the timelines as accurate to the television show as possible so that I don't create too many ripples in time itself, making it so that the other people in other episodes still exist in the same circumstances so that I can still save them. If that makes-" she frowned. "Sense. But it can't be that," she realized. "Because you were supposed to do this episode with Rose, so it's already-"

"What're you on about?" he asked, and she looked back over at him. "What do you mean, I was supposed to do this- _episode_ ," he said, in a voice that suggested he was not happy with the new lingo in his life, before he continued, "with Rose? I never would've traveled with Rose in the- in that timeline," he corrected himself at the last minute, apparently deciding he wouldn't be talking about it in those terms. She could understand why. This wasn't just a show anymore. People died, and talking about it like it was anything but that was disrespectful to them. She made a note of that before he continued. "If I thought that I'd burned my world to the ground, I never would've taken on another companion again, and certainly not Rose."

She blinked at him. She blinked at him again.

"Have you met you?" she asked him.

She was taken aback by the suddenly serious and very fierce look on his face. "Stop it, I'm serious. Exposing people to that… that level of darkness, especially the people that I travel with, I never would've done." He sniffed, looking away from her, the fierce look somewhat dying off of his face. "Your television show must've been wrong."

She furrowed her brow. "… Except that it's not?" she tried. "Because you traveled with Rose and we're-"

" _Stop it_ ," he repeated, standing. He was tall as it was, but now, he was towering over her, every emotion he was having hitting her square in the chest. "Stop saying that I would _ever_ do that to Rose, _I wouldn't_."

" _But you did_ ," she told him, "and you were supposed to come here, with her-"

" _No_!" he shouted, before he turned away from her, rubbing a hand down his face.

Pinstripes was known for being the most manic one of the bunch, but this? This was a whole new level as he started pacing the cell furiously, running his fingers desperately through his hair.

"Why?" he asked her, turning back to look at her as his expression matched his tone. "Why would I ever do that?"

"Because she's _Rose_ ," she told him. "You're right, I don't think you wanted to take on companions again, and I don't think you would've if it had been anybody else but her."

"So what happened? What happened to make the great, _selfish_ coward expose her to the darkness of a man who committed genocide against his own people?"

She and the Doctor both knew that he exposed his companions to darkness, because that was also in the job description. But for this, this personal act, he would've viewed it as the darkest thing he'd ever done. He would've thought he was the worst kind of monster, and didn't want, in his opinion, to let that dull the light of the brilliant humans he traveled with.

"When you first met her, you tried to leave her behind, multiple times," she told him. "But, the Tardis kept landing you directly in her path. Then, when she saved your life under the London Eye, you finally gave in and offered to let her come with you. When she did agree, I think you must've come to your… well, senses, I guess, because you showed her the end of the Earth." Understanding reached his eyes beyond the grief and he stood up taller. "I think that, if it had been anybody else, they wouldn't have stayed on after that. But, she was, well-"

"Rose," he said, quietly, and she nodded, barely smiling.

"To be honest, I don't think you could've shaken her if you tried. So, you just sort of accepted it, and stewed in your guilt about exposing her to that darkness because you were alone and some part of you couldn't be, and also because she was simply her. That was that."

He looked at her desperately. "Did the other me, did he love her?"

"I think so," she told him. "But I think you loved her so much that you wouldn't let yourself have her, because that would be exposing her to too much of the darkness. That aside, you were the last and, well, the thought of having to watch her especially wither and die when you let yourself get too close was too much of a burden for you to bear."

He swallowed, nodding as he sat down. He looked like he wanted to burst out into tears and be sick, all in the same measure.

He shook his head, encircling his arms around his legs, his brown coat fanned out underneath him.

"I can't believe…" he shook his head, smiling a little. "But I guess I can. Because she's Rose. And she's…" he let out a breath. "Everything," he murmured with a sad sigh that shifted his whole body.

They didn't have time to say anything else. In the next moment, their heads both snapped over when they heard the bolt coming undone. Standing in the doorway was Goddard, and she looked exactly like someone who had been hired into her position would look. Overly confident and mildly terrified.

"Mr. Van Statten will see you now."

She stood up and dusted herself off before she followed Goddard out the door.

She didn't know if it was because of the Rose revelation or because he was nervous about the amount of guns surrounding them, but either way, he didn't say a word as they were walked to what she was assuming was Van Statten's office.

Adam and the man himself were already standing in the office-

 _Hold on_ , how had he and Rose survived the _Game Station_ if Adam hadn't been there? The only reason they'd stopped being tortured was because 'The Editor' had gotten the information that he'd been looking for via Adam and his stupid skull door.

Oh, no, hold on, she'd known that it wasn't necessary for Adam to travel with them. They would've ended up at the Game Station either way, and maybe Cathica would've stepped in sooner or Suki would've distracted him or something along those lines. She didn't know, and she couldn't exactly check right now, considering her state of, well, everything, but the fact that she thought that there _were_ alternate possibilities meant that it was likely there had been. Besides, proof of the Doctor's survival was standing beside her, staring at the instrument that Van Statten was holding.

"What does it do?" he asked, as they entered.

"Well, you see the tubes on the side?" Adam asked, pointing them out. He wasn't a bad guy. In fact, he was pretty standard for a human, using time travel for his own personal gain. It was just the way of the world. That's what made the Doctor's companions so brilliant. They weren't interested in that. Well, most of the time, anyway. "It must be to channel something. I think maybe fuel."

"I really wouldn't hold it like that."

It wasn't the Doctor that said it. It was Anna. She'd had a feeling again. Apparently, today was just full of them.

"Shut it."

"Really, though, that's wrong," she told them, despite Goddard's very insistent words.

Adam leaned back out, trying to get himself clear of the potential lethal weapon.

"Is it dangerous?"

"No, it just looks silly," she told them. She started to reach for it, and she saw the Doctor's body jerk in reaction when all the guns were suddenly pointing at her. She raised her eyebrows, looking solely at Van Statten. He looked her over before he, albeit hesitantly, handed it over to her (which, to be honest, she wasn't sure that he would. He came across as a bit sexist on the show, though that could've just been because it was 2005 and humanity still had some way to go in the respecting women department, no matter how 'advanced' it may have seemed at the time).

"Ta," she said, nodding at him, before she gently cradled it, copying the motions the Doctor had done on the show (and if anybody thought that her knowledge of the television wasn't automatically included in the 'back to basics' package, they obviously didn't know anything about Anna). "You just need to be delicate," she told him, quietly, as she played the instrument.

"It's a musical instrument," Van Statten said, surprised.

"And it's a long way from home," she told him.

"Here, let me."

She handed the instrument back over to Van Statten, wanting nothing more than to not, knowing how it would get treated in a moment. She raised her eyebrows, noting that he repeated his actions (which made the instrument react fairly poorly as it had done on the show).

"I did say delicate," she told him. "It reacts to the smallest fingerprint. It needs precision."

He corrected his actions and she barely smiled.

"Very good. Quite the expert."

"As are you."

She had to keep a straight face when he threw the instrument, even if some part of her wanted to flinch.

"Who exactly are you?"

She got a feeling. She genuinely hated it, but she grit her teeth and bared it.

"The Assistant," she told him, before she relaxed at the realization of what her next words would be. "It's what I call myself because it's what men usually assume that I am, when in reality, I'm a doctor and an expert in all things alien tech. This is the Doctor, who happens to be my assistant." She cracked a smile. "I like a bit of irony with my morning coffee. Who doesn't really?" she sat down on the edge of the desk, raising her eyebrows, picking up an artifact and examining it. "No introduction necessary for you, is there Mr. Henry Van Statten?" She looked up from the artifact. "Collector of the rare and valuable, owner of the Internet. Expert in just about everything, except the things in your museum. Anything you don't understand, you lock up."

It was about this point that the Doctor's annoyance was getting too great to ignore. She wished she could block that part of herself off, but she hadn't been able to manage it since she'd done it when she thought the Doctor was kicking her off. It had been an emotional time, and that either meant doing things was either super easy or extra hard, with no inbetween. Unfortunately, she was not emotional, and that meant standing the Doctor's annoyance just a little bit longer.

"And you claim greater knowledge?" Van Statten asked.

"I don't need to make claims, I know how good I am."

An annoyance flare. He knew exactly who she was quoting. It was a bit hard to not, considering he knew himself better than anybody else, and he knew what he would've said in this situation if he'd been in his last body.

"And yet, I captured you. Right next to the Cage. What were you doing down there?"

"You tell us."

Apparently, the Doctor didn't want to sit back anymore. He cut in before she'd had a chance to speak (though that was partially her fault, because she'd been pausing for what was probably an unnecessary dramatic effect).

"Oh, he's English!" Van Statten said, delighted. "Hey, little Lord Fauntleroy, found you a friend." He raised his eyebrows, dropping into something a little more serious. "As for the Cage," he said, "It contains my one living specimen."

"And what's that?"

"Like you don't know."

"Show me."

She rolled her eyes, standing up from her seated position on the edge of the desk. "Excuse my _assistant_ ," she said, looking back at the Doctor and throwing him a look. "He gets a little eager around new discoveries. Probably why I keep him around, to be honest. That, and he's just so darn cute." She crossed her arms over her chest. "Leave the brits to discuss the motherland and tea and crumpets. We can head down to the Cage together."

Annoyance rolled off of him, but it wasn't like he could say anything otherwise. Not without blowing their cover, at any rate.

"Goddard, inform the Cage we're heading down. You, English," he said. "Look after the… assistant. And you, Doctor with no name, come and see my pet."

She raised her eyebrows that he was calling her the Doctor with no name, when she realized that she hadn't told him her name. She kind of liked it, and she stuck with it.

As she turned to walk from the office, surprise shot through her when the Doctor reached out and clasped onto her wrist.

" _Be careful_ ," he hissed at her, and she barely nodded her assent. This was the only thing he could do to protect her, now, remind her to be careful. Not yet up to full power, she was about to be well and truly alone.

A moment later, he released her, and she did as Van Statten said and followed him out of his office and down to the illustrious Cage, despite the fact that, in mere moments, it wouldn't be caging anything.

#####

It wasn't long before she was standing in front of the dalek.

"Ah," she said, leaning back against the wall. "The great and powerful dalek, and yet here you are, trapped by ordinary human chains." She raised her eyebrows. "Did you have fun surfing the time winds?"

Were it any other circumstance, she would be speaking to it kindly. As it was, she needed it to talk to her, so the events could progress as they needed to.

"You know of the daleks?" it spoke in a weak voice. "Explain. Explain."

She watched as the lights came up and she smiled.

"Know a bit more than that, actually," she said. "Know about the Time War, how you fought and lost. And, I know how you lost, because I was the one who made you lose. Or, your species, really."

"You lie. The daleks do not lose. Exterminate. Exterminate."

She raised her eyebrows, smiling. "You want to try that again?" she asked.

"Keep back!" it shouted, and she raised her arms.

"You can have your personal space," she told it, congenially. "What're you here for?"

It was one thing, having seen an episode. It was another entirely to live through it. Yes, she'd already lived through _Flesh and Stone_ , but she'd been well distracted, and that aside, she hadn't been saying lines. Now, she was repeating information that she'd already known for years, so that it _could_ be known. It was… strange.

"I am waiting for orders."

She smiled, shaking her head. "Here's a newsflash. You're never getting any orders."

"I demand orders!"

"They won't ever come," she told him. "Your species is trapped in an alternate dimension that I created and subsequently trapped them in. Sorry, dude," she said, because what else was there to say?

"Who are you?"

"Anna Monroe," she told it. "Associate of the Doctor."

"Then you are an enemy of the daleks!"

"Meh," she replied. "Not really. Cause I'm the only thing that'll get you out of here, and I'll tell you a little secret, I _want_ to," she told it. "Because nobody deserves to suffer like this. Not even a dalek."

She started towards it, almost making it to the chained dalek proper, before the door came open.

"Step away from the dalek!" Van Statten shouted at her, and she raised her eyebrows, turning back to look at him, her hands up.

She quirked her brow. "Come to detain me, have you- all right, all right, _handsy_ ," she said to the guards doing the detaining, but she let herself be dragged out of the Cage.

She had no idea why the Doctor would touch the dalek, but he would. That was the only explanation for how the dalek would be restored to full power, and she had a feeling it would be restored. All of these people were destined to die. Well, with the obvious exception of a spare few.

They got onto the elevator. The emotions rolling off of Van Statten couldn't be described as anything less than fuming.

"You lied to me," he said.

She would've leaned back against the elevator but there were armed guards on either side of her, holding her.

"Yeah, all right," she agreed. "I lied. I'm _not_ a doctor. I'd say sorry, but-"

"Then who are you?"

She'd always known that she'd have a bit of leeway changing things that shouldn't be changed. She'd just forgotten that this was one of those moments until the moment presented itself.

She smiled. "A woman who's about to give you a choice," she told him, simply. "You have a chance to change everything right now, Van Statten. Take us back down to the Cage, and what happens next will never have to happen at all."

She couldn't outright tell him what the horrible thing was, because it would sway his decision. His decision had to be purely him, because he had to be the one to change this moment. Not her.

He smirked, taking a step towards her. "I'll tell you what's about to happen next," he told her. "You're going to tell me everything you know about your little dalek friend, and then, I'm going to find out what makes your special little heart tick." He poked her chest, leaning down and over her. He was no longer fuming. He was very smug. It was almost unbearable. "I heard you talking in the Cage. Creating an alternate dimension and then trapping an entire species inside? An act like that requires either a _complete_ genius… or something that isn't entirely human." He raised his eyebrows. "Which one are you?"

She felt irritation gliding through her. Why could it never be easy?

She leaned back against the guards, almost letting them support her. "Don't say I didn't warn you," she told him.

He searched her. "Same to you," he said. "Now, tell me about the dalek."

"Well," she said, delighted when she realized she didn't have to, so she could continue to be snarky, "considering I'm getting dissected either way, I don't think I'm answering any of your questions. Are you really that much of an idiot, or have you just never done this before? You know, the whole interrogation bit. You have to offer people something in return, Van Statten. Otherwise, they just aren't properly motivated."

"You want to be properly _motivated_? Fine." He reached over, grabbing a radio from one of his men before he continued speaking to her. "Tell me what a dalek is or I'll have your assistant shot and killed." He raised his eyebrows. "How's that for motivated?"

She gritted her teeth, and by the smirk on his face, Van Statten knew that he had won.

"Fine," she said, precisely. "You want to know what a dalek is? It's a killing machine, bred to purify the universe of anything that isn't dalek. The only reason that you even have one locked up down here is because it fell through time from the biggest war in creation, which your tiny mind can't even begin to fathom. It lost all it's power. But, now that it knows that the Doctor is here…" She shook her head. "It's armor is impenetrable, and it will destroy every single person on this base."

"Unless?" he asked.

"Unless what?" she replied. "You can't fight a dalek. Not even the smartest species in the entire universe could fight them, and they were… an unquantifiable number of smarter than you."

"But you did," he told her. "Trapped them in an alternate dimension. And now, you're trapped with me." He smiled, running his hand down her face, and she jerked her face away, snarling. "Let's see what makes you tick, shall we?"

#####

Surprisingly enough, getting tortured never got more fun.

At the very least, she should be getting used to it by now. Don't get her wrong, Van Statten's little machine was nothing compared to the pain she'd felt when the angels had tortured her, but she was technically still recuperating (even if she was at the tail end of it). Considering that even the Doctor had reacted, she was doing good barely screaming as she was.

"What is this?" Van Statten shouted. Even from here and past all her pain, she could feel his anger. She breathed hard as he continued to yell at her. "Your readings are completely normal! You're human!"

Despite her pain, she started to hysterically laugh before she spoke through her laughter.

"Oh my goodness, did I _lie, again_? I mean, once just seems bad enough, _twice_ is just downright _rude_ , wouldn't you agree?"

He was standing before her and he looked down on her, anger very apparent on his face and rolling off of his body in waves.

"Tell me who you are right now, or I will make good on my promise to have your Doctor shot and killed."

She frowned. "What, and miss your chance to study an actual alien, live and up close?" She raised her eyebrows. "Hm?"

He looked at her dead panned. "You're trying to tell me that your assistant, the man who was standing in my office, is an alien."

"I am," she agreed, through the pain.

"How do I know you aren't just lying to save his life? You're so good at it, after all."

She shrugged, turning to look away from him. She just had to buy the Doctor some time to touch the dalek. "Maybe I am, maybe I'm not," she told him. "You kill him and you won't find out."

"Oh, no, I'll find out," he said, and he leaned forward. She was looking away for a different reason, now. "It'll just be a dissection postmortem."

She grit her teeth.

"After all, a dead alien is still an alien. So," he said, and he leaned down closer to her. "You want to try that again?"

She tried to manually feel out the moment when the Doctor would touch the dalek, but pain shot through her chest and she clenched her teeth together before she squeezed her eyes shut.

One little thing. Just one little thing to save both of them. How much harm could it do (besides which, she reasoned herself, this was an emergency)?

She closed her eyes and focused on the thought that it didn't take any energy to see when the moment was that the Doctor would touch the dalek.

She gasped in surprise when she realized that the answer was that he didn't.

"Damn it," she cursed under her breath.

She could see the path, now. If the Doctor didn't touch the dalek, it would remain trapped. Both of them would end up tortured, and then both of them would die. She'd come back to life only to be tortured and killed repeatedly because Van Statten wanted the key to immortality.

It meant she was about to do something that she really didn't want to do.

Her eyes widened as she realized she couldn't infuse the dalek with her DNA. If she did that, there was no telling what would happen. Honestly, the most likely scenario was that it got stronger and blasted it's way out into the Utahian world, and, well, then they really were screwed.

There was nothing else for it. She would have to do it.

Even if it ended up killing her.

She closed her eyes and focused harder than she had ever focused on anything in her entire life.

It wouldn't take any energy to do what she was about to do. None. Not at all. In fact, it would take less than no energy to collect a bit of Rose's leftover DNA from the Tardis before she transported it to the dalek's outer shell.

She was right. It didn't take any energy.

She still passed out to the table below straight after she'd done so.

When she awoke, she was still strapped to the table they'd tortured her on. The alarms were still sounding off in the distance, and she tried to shake herself loose, but that didn't happen. She tried to think about why they might've left her behind when they hadn't left the Doctor behind-

Before she realized she hadn't nearly been as charismatic as him-

Oh, no, she realized. It had nothing to do with charisma. He'd just made himself more useful than she had.

She made a mental note for that the next time.

Assuming that there would be a next time.

#####

The alarms eventually died out and, not long after, she heard the sounds of the Tardis materializing.

At first, she didn't understand why she was hearing it, before she considered the minute possibility that she was getting left behind. She panicked for about two seconds before she watched as it materialized around her.

She was almost surprised to realize she'd been materialized into an empty room before she realized moments later that he'd probably know she was chained up and left there to die. She winced at the imagery of what he'd done to them for that. At the very least, they'd probably been yelled at. If he was feeling particularly angry… well, she doubted he outright hurt them, so there was that, at least.

Her musings were interrupted by the literal storm of emotions that was walking to where she was. She winced once more, this time for a different reason. It couldn't have been easy for him to see a dalek, and she realized belatedly that she hadn't even warned him of it-

It was different in this context, too, possibly even worse. The daleks hadn't destroyed his home, but they had taken Rose. That pain was still fresh, and well…

The only thing she could hope was that he wouldn't be too cross with her. If he was cross at all.

It was fine, she reasoned. She would explain, and he would understand.

She frowned as the storm of emotions got closer, realizing that it wasn't about the dalek at all. It was too much emotion for that, and that aside, she had a feeling that it wasn't.

When he walked into the room-

No. Not _walked_. Stormed.

 _The Oncoming Storm_.

She froze where she was, not even sure why he was this cross. It wasn't because of the dalek, she was sure of that now, and it wasn't because she hadn't warned him about the men and women dying, because she had. What could this possibly be-

He stood in front of her, putting his hands in his pockets, but he didn't undo the straps.

"True or false," he said, his tone clipped and clinic and not at all reflecting his anger. "Rose traveled with me in the television show."

"True," she said, quietly, despite the fact that she was confused and had no idea why he was even asking about this, since he already knew the answer.

His eyes flashed. Despite this, he continued.

"True or false, changing the outcome of the Time War changed my own personal future, i.e., what you had seen on the television show."

"… True," she said, though it was with more of a hint of confusion than she'd had before.

His eyes flashed. This time, the emotion lingered.

"True or false, despite knowing this, despite knowing that I wouldn't end up traveling with Rose-" her heart stuttered in her chest, and she readjusted against the straps, real fear entering her chest. "-you _still_ went ahead and changed the outcome of _my personal future_."

If she were anybody else, she probably would've told him that it wasn't just about him, that she'd done it to save all of Gallifrey and the universe.

But, she wasn't anybody else.

That aside, it wasn't entirely honest.

"Doctor-" she started, in a shaky voice.

" _True or false_ ," he ordered her, and she sucked in a breath, leaning back against the table.

"False," she said, in a small voice.

He laughed, but it wasn't funny. "Which part, Anna?" he asked. "Which part of it was false? The fact that you changed my personal future, or the fact that you did so knowing that _you risked my traveling with Rose_ at all?"

She shook her head. "It's not that simple-"

"Then _make it simple_."

She readjusted once more, letting out a breath as shaky as the rest of her body.

"I knew that the Tardis would still find her," she told him, and he searched her, astounded, before he turned away from her, rubbing a hand down his face. "I knew that she would still want her to travel with you, and it was even better because you weren't burdened by what you had thought you'd done-"

" _You don't get to make that decision, Anna_!" he shouted at her, turning back to look at her. "You don't get to-to decide what's better or what's worse for people, _you are not a god!_ "

She clenched her teeth together so hard her jaw hurt. When he was finished, she spoke. "I told you that there was a television show, and I had changed it. What exactly did you think-"

"That I would've done the hard thing and not exposed anybody to that darkness!" he shouted at her. "That I wouldn't have been so stupidly, blindly, arrogantly selfish and exposed the most brilliant people to the most terrible kind of darkness!"

She raised her eyebrows. "No, right, so it's okay for me to change your personal future-"

"Because I didn't think you were changing anybody else's!"

He searched her eyes, amazement reading in them.

"Bloody hell, Anna. Do you really think that I would've been okay with this if I'd have known that I might lose Rose in the process?"

"No," she told him, quietly. "But I'm telling you now that I knew that the Tardis-"

"Did you see it?" he asked her. She bit her lip, but she shook her head. "Did you have a feeling about it?"

"I was sure-"

She curled in on herself when he started to yell at her.

"Did you have a feeling about it?"

" _No_ ," she started, before she let out a breath. "No," she repeated. "But I knew the Tardis well enough-"

"Stop it."

" _I knew the Tardis well enough_ -"

"Seriously, Anna, I mean it, _stop it_."

He threw her a look, and that might not have been enough, but that combined with the fact that there was still a maelstrom of emotions printed across his face and, oh yeah, she was still tied down, she did as he said, not speaking.

Then, he said two words that changed everything.

"Undo it."

Blatant surprise rested on her face.

"What?" she asked.

"Change it," he told her, simply. "Undo it, turn it back to the way that it was, and then I never want to see your face again."

She felt a mixture of shock and fear race through her. It was a good thing she was tied down because her legs were useless right now.

"Doctor, I can't," she said, quietly.

"Oh, don't give me that," he said, starting to pace. "You said so yourself, remember, back at the carnival? You asked if I wanted you to undo it, well, I'm telling you now that I do." He stood in front of her with his hands in his pockets, tall, sure, and terrifying. "Undo it. Change it. Put it back the way that it was meant to be."

She barely bit her lip, before she shook her head. "I can't," she told him. "I don't-I don't have the energy for it, or I swear, I would, I'm sorry, I'm not-I'm not trying to be difficult, I just-I can't."

He raised his eyebrows disinterested, searching her.

"Yeah, there is that, isn't there?" he asked her. "You, not having enough energy to even _defend_ yourself."

He searched her for a long moment before he came to a conclusion.

"Right then," he said, and he walked over to her. With the way that she was feeling, it wasn't any wonder that she turned her face into the table, fully expecting him to beat her into submission. "Oh, relax," he mocked her. "I'm only untying you so that I can drop you off so that you can get your energy back before you undo what you did. Then, you can run back home to your original dimension, and we'll never see each other again. And, don't try anything clever like trying to get to the me in that timeline, cos, I'll tell you what, it's not clever. I can see everything that is, was, and ever could be, which means that I'll have seen this timeline and I'll know your face and I'll just send you right back where you came from." He finished undoing her straps before he stood up. She looked over at him, rubbing her wrists where the straps had rubbed against them. "Do you understand?"

She was shaking. Tears were forming in her eyes. Yet, she knew that he did not care about any of this. He only cared about one thing.

"Ye-yes," she said, having to clear her throat before she nodded. "Yes," she repeated, whispering the word.

He was completely cut off from her and completely disinterested in her, and he nodded.

"Good," he said. "Come on."

She didn't make the mistake of trying to reason with him or trying to beg him to not do this. Truth be told, she wasn't even sure that she was interested in that. She'd half expected him to say this exact thing when she first explained it to him. Now, he'd said it. It wasn't surprising, so she didn't act like it was.

In fact, she was rather numb as she walked into the console room. She walked past him to the gangway, keeping her head down as she stood at the doors, her entire body tense as she shook, rubbing at her wrists out of habit and trying desperately not to think about what had made the red marks encircling them.

When the Tardis landed, she didn't even pause, opening the door and walking out, not once looking back.

#####

Well, at least she was sensible enough not to expect something like a _goodbye_ from him. The storm within raged at him, calling for him to do much worse to the woman who'd nearly wrecked his chances of ever even _meeting_ Rose. It was only through hundreds of years of practice that the only thing he did was watch her walk away.

As soon as she closed the door behind her, he took off, never once looking back.

He started around the console finishing the protocol to float about the vortex when he realized that he'd no idea how he was supposed to know that she'd done it, reverted the timeline the way that it was supposed to be.

Except, no, of course he did. He would be wiped out, just like the rest of this timeline and all the people in it. This wrong timeline would no longer exist, and neither would he. Just like it was always meant to be.

"Tell me something. Was it the regeneration that messed you up this badly, or are you just naturally this stupid?"

Or, it would've been, except for the voice that he was suddenly hearing from across the console room.

He looked around the rotor itself to see that there was a floppy haired man in a bowtie that was currently… petting the rotor?

"Hello, Old Girl."

Surprise rolled through him. He was standing in his own console room.

"What?"

"Yes, yes, I know it's very tempting to fling him off into a supernova, just hang on."

"Bu… _What_?" he asked-

Before realization rolled through him.

Maybe this was just what being inside a disintegrating timeline was like. All of his past and or future selves would join him. Mind, the bowtie-

Hang on, how could a future self be joining him if the timeline disintegrated at this point? That made-

Although, he supposed it did make sense. If it took Anna a long time to get her energy back, then maybe he'd run through the rest of his regenerations before she'd disintegrated the timeline.

Well. At least she'd done as instructed. Now, he never had to see her face again.

"So, this is it, then?" he asked his future self. "Mind you, thought it be a bit different, being in a disintegrating timeline-"

"You really are thick, aren't you?"

Even with a different face, he knew himself well enough to know that look. He was terrifically cross, even as he was hiding it behind a mask he could easily read through.

He hadn't even looked at him, continuing to look at the time rotor as he was, petting it as he was.

"I want you to take a moment, just a moment, to feel the Tardis right now. I know it might be hard, but try, for me."

He frowned, but did as his… well, former future self, he supposed, instructed him to do, closing his eyes and feeling the Tardis around him.

The emotions were so strong that he actually had to throw himself back from the rotor, his body trying to do a semblance of the impossible and get away from the emotions. It was everywhere, soaking everything to it's core.

It was fury. She was _absolutely, terrifyingly_ furious at him.

"You probably thought that I was joking about her wanting to throw you into a supernova right now, but I'm really, really not." His lips curled into a snarl, before he composed his face. When he turned to look at him, it was just anger behind that mask, but a deceiving blankness up front. "Do you have any idea what it is that you have done?"

If his former future self was looking for remorse, he was in the wrong timeline.

"Of course," he answered, simply, leaning against the railing before he jumped away because it scorched him, even through his suit. "Ouch, corrected the timeline. Put it back the way that it was meant to be."

His lips twitched up into a smile, but he was anything but pleased.

"Do you- you're not-"

He devolved from the calm front. He just got angry.

"I don't even know where to _start_ with you," he started, moving towards him. "All that _nonsense_ that you threw at Anna like an emotional grenade about her not being a _god_ , but you turn around and do _this_? You decided how the timeline should've been _the moment_ that you kicked her off of this ship, and don't try to argue that you didn't, because you know, in your heart of hearts, that it is absolutely. _True._ " He hissed at him. He was standing toe to toe with him. "But it is so much worse than that. The reason that you did it, the _reason_ that you decided how the timelines should be, the _reason_ that you _hurt Anna_ -"

"Don't talk to _me_ about people being _hurt_!" he shouted at him.

Whatever Anna was feeling, it couldn't have compared _anything_ to how he'd felt back there. She hadn't even _warned_ him about the dalek, but what was _worse_ was that he'd had to stand back and watch as it somehow regained it's power and destroyed _all the people_ on the base.

He'd tried to reason with it, to tell it that he could take it home (or at the very least, that he could take it to where it could join the other daleks, but it didn't have to know that). He was the enemy of the daleks, however, and was not to be trusted to _help_ them. So, with the exception of a handful of people, everybody on that base had died.

But, it was even worse than that.

Anna had known that he'd traveled with Rose, and how much he loved her. Even _knowing_ that, even knowing how much he loved her and what she meant to him, Anna had still changed his personal future so that he wouldn't feel a bit of _guilt_.

She'd said it herself, things would've been fine without her. The time lords would've lived, and he would've eventually found out the truth. But to do this? It was one thing to change his personal history, but to threaten his Rose traveling the universe and affecting it for the better? That wasn't something he would stand for.

It was just better this way, he reasoned. Better that he never meet her, better that she never come here, better that she not change a _thing_. Because, at least that way, he never stood a chance of losing Rose.

His thoughts were interrupted and he was surprised when he felt something grabbing his ankles. He looked down in time to see the grating wrapping itself around his ankles before he felt himself being yanked down. He tried to struggle, but that was entirely futile when he was completely encased in the grating, the grating pressing against the underside of his jaw so that he couldn't speak again.

"Listen to me _very carefully_ ," his former future self said, kneeling down over him, even as grating jabbed at him and cut him and his own Tardis turned against him. "You're heading back to pick up that girl, and I will tell you why you will not do this with _any arguing_ ," he said with extra emphasis at the look on his face. "The reason that you deemed it so important to tear Anna down in one of her most vulnerable states was because of _one girl_. _One_. Rose is more than special. She was everything to you, and I understand that, and I'm not discrediting that in any way. Let me make that very clear. I was you, and I understand the pain and loss that you're feeling. But that does _not_ excuse demanding Anna turn back the clock before throwing her away like she is _nothing_ because you're afraid of an event that has no chance of even _passing_." He searched his face. "She's right, you know. The Tardis _is_ alive. And she _never._ Would've let _any_ timeline pass where we _didn't meet Rose_ , because she is special, and she is important, and she is so good and brave and kind, and if she knew that you had done this because of your fear and your heartbreak over her, she would be so disappointed in you."

His hearts clenched at the realization that he was talking about Rose, and he realized that he was right. Right about all of it, about this being about his fear and his heartbreak and what a disservice that was to the woman he claimed to love so deeply and so widely, his hearts shattered into a thousand pieces because of her loss.

He'd thrown Anna away like she was nothing over an event that would never be.

" _Besides which_ ," he continued, "even if that _weren't_ true, you're still willing to put all the people that Anna did save, including you, you ginormous, _ignorant_ -" his lips curled before he continued. "You're still willing to put all those people back into that hell because you have some-some megalomaniac need to put her in her place? Are you _joking_?" he searched him before he shook his head, amazed. "I have no idea how I ever _was_ you, and believe me when I say that I am glad that I have put you behind me because, by goodness…" he searched his eyes. "Before I head back to the correct time, let me make one thing _very clear_ to you. You _ever_ hurt her like this again, and you won't have to worry about the Tardis throwing you into a supernova. I'll do it myself. _Happily_. Are we _very_ clear about that?"

He tried to nod before the grating tightened around his face so much that his jaw ached. He settled on blinking once for 'yes', a stray tear rolling down his cheek.

"Are you in pain?" he asked him. "I'd be very glad of it if you were, because then at least you would understand a _fraction_ of how Anna is feeling right now, because of _what you did. Fix. This._ "

His former future self-

His _future_ self's face was contorted in rage. He blinked once for 'yes' but his future self didn't seem to care. He stood up, moving away from him.

Moments later, he came back to himself, everything about him sore and aching-

It hit him, then. What he'd done. What a massive idiot he'd been. He'd thrown Anna out, and for what? An event that had no chance of even passing anymore, an event that she was sure the Tardis would've made happen, regardless of how timelines had shifted, an event that, _to be clear_ , he wouldn't have even _known_ hadn't happened unless he'd looked for it in his time sense?

Rose would be so disappointed in you.

His hearts clenched and he couldn't get up fast enough, not even caring how he'd ended up on the ground in the first place, or why he was sore. It was all he could do to stumble through getting back to where he'd dropped Anna off in the first place-

Dropped Anna off. More like dropped kick her out of his Tardis, but not before he'd done what was probably her worst fear, in one of her most vulnerable states.

He'd lost her.

He accepted it the moment that he realized, well, more like remembered what her past- her _very recent past_ had been. He'd never be able to get her back. The only thing that he could hope to do was find her before she was back up to her full power and followed through on the thing he'd told her- the thing he'd _commanded_ her to do.

He was down the gangway before the noises of the materialization circuit were even completed and out the door the moment that they were.

"Anna!" he shouted, his eyes searching wildly to try to see if he could find her among the crowd loitering on the plaza. He'd landed a second after he'd thrown her out, so she should still be in the same place, where was she? "Anna!" he called out again, for good measure.

But, it was no use.

Anna was gone.


	10. Old New World

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Fair warning, this chapter is different to my other chapters (I'm being purposefully vague because I don't know how to explain how it's different, I just know that it is?).   
> Chapter title based on, "Brave New World."  
> I still don't own Doctor Who.

She stepped out of the Tardis and made it about four steps before she fell to her knees on the pavement below.

She began to sob, then, sobbing in a way that she hadn't because she hadn't been hurt like this in a very long time.

She sucked in a desperate breath. "Stop it," she ordered herself. "Stop crying, stop it, stop it…"

Despite her brave words, she continued to sob, folding in on herself even more.

What had she expected? That he'd want her to stick around after he found out the true implications of what she'd done?

No, but she thought he understood, she told herself. She thought he understood-

How was she to know that he hated himself so much he assumed that he would never travel with anybody again?

But she should've seen this coming, she told herself. She should've done. She was her. She should've planned for this. She should've known that it would happen-

Her head shot up and she realized that she _had_ planned for this. That she'd told herself that he _would_ hate her for what she'd done and demand that she undo it. Of course, she'd filed it under the 'reactions people probably won't have' because she imagined worse case scenarios. That's just what her brain did in those days.

Turned out, it wasn't so out of left field as she'd always comforted herself that it would be, telling herself that it was irrational and she would have saved Gallifrey and the universe and he wouldn't, _couldn't,_ hate her for that... except that he did, because it had happened. She needed to stop acting like it surprised her, and what was more, she needed to stop acting like this. She wasn't this destroyed little girl anymore. She was stronger than that, now, and she needed to get herself together and get to work.

She'd technically lied to him, when all was said and done. She _could_ do what she said she could, she just needed to bend the rules a little bit more. What was some damage to this timeline, anyway, when this timeline wouldn't exist in a moment?

She closed her eyes and let out a breath, imagining that it didn't take any energy at all to undo what she'd done.

She opened her eyes in surprise when she heard a yell and felt something flying past her. There was an impressive oomph accompanied by a thump, and she frowned as she looked down at the person laying on the ground next to her.

It appeared to be a young black man, wearing a bomber jacket and a t-shirt, as well as plain jeans and checkered shoes. He was rolling over onto his back, breathing hard. He opened his eyes and, to her surprise, he looked up at her.

"I was shouting your name, did you really not hear me?"

She frowned. "Do I know you?"

"Can you stop squawking in my ear, I _said_ I've got her. We're over here." She frowned, watching him. He'd put his head back, breathing hard, before he picked his head back up, looking up at her. "Sorry, I'm- _then use the sonic like you said you would do_ ," he said, before he rolled his eyes and touched his ear. He offered his hand out to her. "Help me up?"

She raised her eyebrows before she crossed her arms, looking down at him expectantly. "Love to, once you tell me who you-" she frowned as she realized that she recognized him. "Hold on, I know you, don't I?"

He frowned. "You shouldn't do. Doctor says you haven't met us yet."

She'd had a long day, and to be fair, this was a little more than out of context.

"Doctor?"

"Yeah, Doctor," he said, his hand still out for her to grab hold of. "You know, the Doctor?" he frowned. "You have _met_ the Doctor, haven't you? Blonde woman, about this high-" he started to motion while he was still on the ground.

Her eyes widened at the same time that he seemed to realize that he was on the ground and motioning like that wasn't about to help in the 'showing her the Doctor's height' department.

"Crap," she whispered. She'd obviously taken too long to undo it and now the Doctor was coming after her, to _motivate_ her better so that she would undo what she'd done. She quickly closed her eyes, concentrating on the fact that it took absolutely _no_ energy to undo it, she just had to focus, she just had to think, just _think_ -

"Anna!"

She flinched before she squeezed her eyes shut, trying to focus harder.

"No, hang about, what're you doing? Anna, listen to me, whatever you're about to do it's going to _destroy_ the timeline-"

In a fit of frustration, she opened her eyes and shouted, "That's sort of the _point_!"

"Because I asked you to undo it, right?"

She whirled around, terror striking her heart. There she was, the Doctor, all blonde and long coat and woman's body.

Everything about Anna was shaking as she held up her hands in an attempt to placate her.

"I'm undoing it now, I promise you-"

"I'm here to tell you that I don't want you to."

She frowned. "What?" she asked.

Understanding reached her.

"Oh," she said, quietly, and she stood down. "Oh, so the whole…" she looked down at the ground. "It didn't work, so now you've come back to tell me to wait until I have the energy to do it-"

"Anna, look at me."

She frowned, shaking her head, looking up at her. "I can do it," she told her. "Just give me a minute, I can fix it-"

"I'm telling you that I don't _want you to_."

She raised her eyebrows, shaking her head. " _This_ you doesn't want me to undo it, and that's-that's great, but the past you was _very clear_ -"

"The past me came to his senses about ten seconds- Well, I say came to his senses, the point is, he knew that what he'd done was wrong." She shook her head. "None of me wants you to undo what you did. For me, for the universe, for all of us. And I'm so sorry that I treated you the way that I did-"

She shook her head. "I don't believe you," she told her, quietly. "This is a trick, or a trap-"

"I know that it feels that way," she said. "I don't blame you for that. I'm only asking for a chance to prove to you that it's not, which is more than I deserve. _You_ are _so much more_ than I deserve, and if you _do_ end up undoing it, then that's what I deserve, too. For the way I treated you, I deserve so much worse. I'm just asking for a chance to show you that this isn't a trick or a trap. Please, Anna."

She furrowed her brow.

"I have to undo it," she said. "I don't-"

"You're gonna destroy us in the process."

She looked back at the man standing behind her, her brows pinched together.

"Ryan-"

"No, that's what you said, that if we didn't get to her in time, she'd destroy all of us-"

"To be fair, I did say _might_ happen," The Doctor pointed out, and she looked back at her. "For all I know, the only thing that'll happen is that Anna will disappear from this timeline forever, and I'll spend the rest of my life wondering what happened. Well, that, and feeling guilty that I so successfully pushed away one of the only good things in my life at the time, but other than that. We'd probably be fine, Ryan. So, if Anna wants to undo it and get transported to a different timeline, then that's her choice."

She looked back at the Doctor desperately.

"I have to undo it!"

"Okay," she said, her hands up. "If that's what you really want, then I'm not stopping you."

She snarled, for the first time getting angry. Well, anger was too strong of a word. Frustrated, more like. "It's _not_ what I want, it's what you _told me_ to do."

"I know," she replied. "I'm sorry for that, I'm _so sorry_ , _more_ sorry than you can know-"

" _Stop it_ ," she hissed at her. She raked her fingers through her hair and looked down at the pavement.

"Anna, please. It's more than I deserve, just give me a chance to show you that this isn't a trick or a trap and that I'm not gonna hurt you. Please. I promise you, this isn't a trick or a trap, and I won't hurt you, please, just give me a chance to show you that."

Anna had been hurt for so long and so deeply. She'd thought he'd want her to undo it, but for it to happen like this, for him to not saying anything until she already thought she was in the clear and safe and out of harms way…

She raised her eyebrows and she shook her head, her decision made.

"No," she said.

She looked up at the Doctor to see the heartbreak that rested in the corner of her eyes.

"Okay," she said. "I'm sorry, then."

She snarled. "For what?"

"For this."

In the next instance, she was to her, forcing her hand onto a piece of metal.

"No, no-" she sucked in a breath, struggling. "No, _please_ -"

In the next instance, she was tunneling down, and she didn't stop.

#####

The Doctor ran back into the Tardis, to try to find out what happened. He quickly found out that it wasn't a second after he'd landed; it was nearly an hour after he'd landed that he landed now. He stood there, staring at the monitor for a solid second before he reprogrammed the coordinates, trying to land.

He spent the next hour doing the same.

#####

He finally persuaded the Tardis to land a second after he'd set her to take off, but when he stepped off, he founds himself not on the gray cement of the plaza, but gray dust of the moon.

Anna was there, but his hearts didn't have a chance to leap in his chest out of relief. She was struggling against a blonde woman as she begged her to release her, even as the blonde woman shushed her and told her it was all right.

"Oi!" he shouted, and he took the two strides it took to reach them before he reached out to grab onto her.

Anna looked over at him, but it wasn't relief that filled her when her eyes landed on him. Instead, it was a newfound terror that should have had her scrambling away. Instead, she was completely frozen in the woman's arms.

"Hello, you useless twat."

"Oi," he said, for a different reason. He looked over to see that the blonde woman was staring at him, rage in her eyes.

"Tell her that you don't want her to undo it."

He raised his eyebrows. "I don't really think you're in a position to be telling anybody what to do. Hand her over to-"

"I'm-I'm undoing it," Anna spoke, suddenly. He furrowed his brows, looking to Anna. Whereas she'd been struggling before, she was just shrinking back and away from him (though she was also shrinking back and away from the woman, if that was any consolation). She was shaking, and she looked absolutely _terrified_. She nodded, barely licking her lips, "I am, I promise," she told him, before she looked between him and the blonde woman. "Really, you don't-"

"Anna, neither of us are going to hurt you," the blonde woman told her.

"Could've fooled me," he said, turning to look at the blonde woman. "Considering that you teleported the both of you to the moon without any breathing apparatuses, from what I can tell."

"Really?" she said, in a question that wasn't a question, as she looked back at him. "You're gonna focus on the strange woman and not on the fact that I've just had to tell her that neither of us will hurt her?"

"Seemed appropriate, considering you're the one who apparently kidnapped her and dragged her to the moon. Give her to me. Now."

"Yes, and _you're_ the one who-"

"I'm sorry," Anna said, suddenly. She was tugging at the woman's grip on her, but it was halfhearted, more out of instinct than anything else. She looked between them, that same terror resting on her face. "I'm sorry for not undoing it quickly enough, but you don't have to-"

His eyes widened as it hit him, that sense overridden by his emotions. "You're me," he said, looking to the blonde woman in front of him.

"Well, _give the man a prize_!" she shouted.

" _Please_!" Anna burst out, tugging with more force but less consistently, and he watched as she dropped to her knees, sobbing.

She abruptly stopped, shaking her head as she stared listlessly at the moon.

"I'll fix it," she whispered, but she wasn't speaking to either of them. "I'll fix it."

He looked at the woman who could only be his future self and shook his head.

"Good idea, was this?" he asked her in a voice low enough for only them to hear. Anger bloomed in her eyes and she took a step towards him, releasing Anna in the process. She barely fell forward before she started to pick up moon dust, letting it drop between her fingers.

"Don't _talk_ to _me_ about _good ideas_ you _utter_ -" she grit her teeth, searching him. "Far as I'm concerned, you don't have _any_ ground to stand on when it comes to this, so don't _talk_ to me about _good ideas_."

He laughed in a humorless way. "Really?" he asked, before the humor dropped from his face entirely. "I'm not the one who put her into a complete sobbing mess, that was you-"

"Are you _joking_ me?" she asked, her voice a little bit louder, before they both glanced at Anna. She was still letting the moon dust run through her fingers. " _You're_ the one who basically made her worst fear come to life-"

"Well at least I didn't kidnap her against her will and bring her to an oxygenless environment!" he whisper-yelled at her.

"I knew you would be here you twat!" she spat at him.

He blinked. "Oh," he said, quietly, before he glanced back at Anna. "Seriously, what did you do to make her so afraid?"

Astonishment rested on her face. "What did I- what did I-" she looked at him angrily. "I'll tell you what, you are very lucky that you are technically me, because I'll tell you something else, if it were anybody else, I'd be happily _chucking_ you into a _supernova_!"

She yelled the last bit and he shot her look.

"What are you two doing?"

They both looked back at Anna to see that she was standing now, looking between the two of them with her brows furrowed.

"Ah, back with us, then?"

"How'd you mean?"

"I mean, are you back with us enough for this _utter twat_ to tell you that he doesn't want you to undo it and for you to believe him?"

He frowned, looking back at the other Doctor. Why wouldn't she believe him?

He understood the aftereffects of emotional abuse to know that she probably wouldn't want to see him ever again after this encounter, but what the other Doctor was saying didn't make sense. Shouldn't she be _more_ inclined to believe him, if only that it meant he would be appeased and therefore he wouldn't be even angrier at her and hurt her worse than he'd already done?

Guilt tore at his hearts and he felt all the fight drain from him. He glanced again at the other Doctor miserably, though she wasn't looking at him, as focused on Anna as she was.

"She's-" he started, taking a step forward.

"Nope, not your turn yet. Anna's still yet to answer the question. So?"

She frowned, looking around. "Why've you brought me to the moon?" her eyes caught the Earth, and they widened, surprised, though awe crossed it shortly after.

In the next moment, surprise and terror crossed her face in equal measure, and her face snapped back to the two standing in front of her. She shook her head, immediately holding her hands up, about to take a step back before she reconsidered.

"Woah, hey, the air shell-" the other Doctor started, before he had a chance to speak.

"No, wait, okay," she started, and she glanced at the Tardis, once again barely licking her lips before she shook her head. "Yes, I lied, I can-I can undo it now, and I will-" surprise lit him up before confusion trailed through him. What did she mean, she could undo it now? How was she expecting to do that, then? She laughed, manically. "This isn't- this _really_ isn't- I can't focus if I'm dying over and over again-"

She froze, completely, and he frowned, glancing at the other Doctor.

The other Doctor had a naturally happier face than he was used to seeing in the mirror, but the mask she used to hide her emotions was still the same as it had been with all the other faces. Currently on her naturally happy face was a very well constructed mask and, right now, that was hiding a _lot_ of rage.

He looked back over at Anna, but before he could ask what she meant by dying over and over again, she spoke.

"Do you…?" she started.

He'd traveled with Anna for six years. They'd faced down some terrible things.

Yet, he'd never seen her look so terrified as she did right then, in that moment.

"Anna, it's-" he started.

The other Doctor shushed him, even as both of them watched as she started to hyperventilate, looking around, shaking her head as she sunk to her knees.

"Okay," she said. "Okay, it's okay." She nodded, grasping at the moon dust as desperately as she was gasping for breath.

"Anna-" he started for her, but the other him held out her arm, blocking him from reaching Anna. He glanced at her, irritated, but watched as Anna looked up at him, shaking her head.

"I can undo it," she whispered, clenching at the dirt with her fists. "I can undo it, I can undo it, I can _undo it_."

The other Doctor crouched down, her coat fanning out around her in the dust. "Anna, listen to me," she said, quietly. "I need you to take a moment and think about what's _actually_ happened. What did I say, back at the plaza?"

She shook her head, clutching at her chest. "I don't know," she said, through gasping breaths.

"Yes, you do. You remember. I said that he doesn't want you to undo it. Remember?"

She looked up at him through half-lidded eyes, still struggling for breaths. It occurred to him for a moment that perhaps she had already escaped the air shell before he realized that that would've been a much different reaction entirely.

"Is-is-is that true?" she asked, and he nodded.

"Yes, Anna, it is," he told her, and he started to take a step towards her. "And I am so sorry-"

She flinched, turning her whole body to the side. "So- so you haven't brought me to the moon, so that you can strand me here until I undo it, because I was- I was taking too long?"

He frowned. Why would they do that? If he were to strand her somewhere, wouldn't it have been somewhere with oxygen?

_Dying, over and over again._

Absolute horror filled him as he stared down at Anna. She thought that he wanted to… _kill_ her? Worse than that, she thought that he wanted to _torture_ her into doing what he wanted by killing her over and over again because he was a bit _impatient_?

At a loss for words, he looked down at the other Doctor, finally willing to accept cues because he was finally understanding just out of his depth he was. Instead of speaking, she shot him a look like he'd better, and he swallowed before he spoke.

"Anna, no, of- of course not, Anna, I would never-"

"I thought you would never do this, but here we are," she said, and he flinched under the weight of her words before he flinched under the weight of her stare as she stood looking at him with an accusatory expression. "I thought that I was _safe_ with you, that I was _loved_ by you, and instead you turn around and _stab me in the back_?" If looks could kill, he would've used up all his remaining regenerations. Still, he bore it because he deserved it, and every other horrible thing she was about to say to him. "That's something that she would do, you know," she said, and she appeared to be speaking past a lump in her throat. "I'd do something I'd deem _worthy of punishment_ ," and here, she snarled around her words. "but she would act like it was _fine_. That was, until the moment I _thought_ I was in the clear. _That_ was the moment she would strike."

Horror filled him at the realization that she was talking about her mother, and he opened his mouth. "Anna, I'm sorry," he told her. "Being back there, it was like-"

"No!" she shouted at him. "No, you don't get to _justify_ this- and _you_!" she turned to look at his other self. "I _explicitly_ told you no, so you bring me here anyway?"

"I'm sorry," she said.

"It's-it's fine, I'm not that pissed off at you, but _you_!" she turned back to look at him. "What the- I _trusted_ you! Do you have _any_ \- any _Earthly_ idea how _hard that_ was for me to do, and then for you to turn around and pull _this_ - _this_ -" she let out a frustrated yell before she turned back to look at him. "Screw this, right now, right in this moment, you tell me if you ever think you want it undone. If there is-"

"No-"

"If you think that there will _ever_ be _any singular_ doubt in your mind that this is something that you _won't want in the future_." She shook her head. "I don't care how unfair that is to you, to ask you to make a decision for your future self, because this wasn't at all fair to me, and I won't be terrified and having this hanging over my head for the rest of our time spent traveling together. Do you understand?" she asked him. "Because I'm telling you now, right now, that this is the last time that I am asking you if you want this undone." She raised her eyebrows. "Well?" she asked. "Do you?"

"No, Anna," he said, sure, confident. "I don't."

Because how could he have ever been so selfish as to think that every life on Gallifrey was worth his fear and his heartbreak?

"And-"

"Nope, you're done," she told him. He felt his hearts sink down into his toes and out to the moon as he realized that this was it. She was saying goodbye to him forever.

Maybe this was his lot in life. Even if he hadn't destroyed his people, he had done far worse. Maybe this was his punishment. Always losing the ones that he cared about.

"You are getting me a nice flat at the beach while I sort myself out. Specifically, a California beach in the 2010s." she raised her eyebrows. "Clear?"

"Happily," his older self said, a bounce in her step.

"And you," she said, as he watched as his older self walk over to her. "I will call you when I'm finished fuming at you. But, for now, you have my _absolute_ permission to stew in your guilt."

He frowned. "Wait, what?"

"What part of that was too difficult for your tiny mind to grasp?" she asked him, as his older self stood next to her, looking smugly at him.

"I don't… why would you be calling me?"

She frowned. "How _else_ are you planning on picking me up?" she asked him.

He looked between the two, bewildered, as he swallowed past the lump in his throat. He killed the hope before it had a chance to rise in his hearts.

"I'm picking you up?"

Apparently, he hadn't effectively killed the hope in his hearts, because it barely translated to his tone.

Her brows pinched together and she looked at his older self like, _Is he serious?_ His older self shrugged in return. "He is a bit thick, isn't he?" she asked.

"Yes, _of course_ you're picking me up-" her eyes widened and she looked to his older self. "He _does_ want to pick me up, doesn't he?"

"Yes, he does, as do a whole _host_ of other Doctors. You've got a line of them out your door."

"As it should be," she said, linking her arms with his future self, though there was a tremor in her hand that hadn't been present before. She looked back at him, her brows furrowed, tears lining the bottom of her eyes as she bit her bottom lip. "So," she said. "picking me up or what?"

Startled, he nodded. "Yeah, yes, of course," he managed to get out in a stilted tone. "I just- I don't understand why you would want me to."

His hearts sank in his chest as he watched the first of the tears fall and she wiped at it with a shaking hand.

"She's right," she said, replacing her shaking hand on his older self's arm. "You are a twat."

With that declaration, they vanished, the manipulator having done it's job and taken them away. Meanwhile, he stood on the moon, staring out at the moon dust, wondering… Well, if he were being honest, wondering what in the _hell_ had just happened.

#####

Months passed. Anna stood on the beach and stared out at the ocean. She'd spent the past week or so debating whether or not to call him. It had been so nice being at the beach and not having to worry about anyone or anything except for what her plans were for the day. Besides, there was still the small matter to consider that she still didn't entirely trust him. The thought of heading back with him still wasn't something she was sure she wanted to undertake.

What if he did or said something like he had before, and she had to pay the emotional price for it? She wasn't sure she was ready for that.

In the midst of her musing, a voice rose over the sounds of the waves.

"Boyfriend troubles?"

She raised her eyebrows, looking over at the voice that had spoken. She frowned at the familiar face, and tried to place how she knew him and why a Brit was standing on a California beach.

"Sorry?" she asked.

Before he smiled.

She suddenly placed him.

The Doctor had made the mistake of dropping her off in the late 2000s, which was fine because a California beach was still a California beach.

It meant that, standing in front of her right now was Harold Saxon.

AKA.

The Master.


	11. The Curious Case of Harold Saxon

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter title based on, "The Curious Case of Benjamin Button."  
> BIG BIG TRIGGER WARNING: Emphasis on emotional abuse. Physical abuse. But seriously. Emotional abuse.  
> I still don't own Doctor Who.

At first, she frowned, just staring at him.

It was the late 2000s, fine, but did that mean that he _had_ to be standing on this beach next to _her_ , of all people?

She still wasn't back up to full power, but she was getting there. Enough that she could defend herself, if need be.

So, no. She wasn't afraid of him, not really. More just… _annoyed_.

"What are you doing here?"

"Should I be flattered that the most powerful woman in the universe knows who I am?"

"You should be wary because you're interrupting her vacation and that's _annoying_."

He held up his hands, smiling in a placating way. "Wasn't my intention," he told her. He put his hands behind his back, searching the California waves like they held some big question he'd never thought to ask. "I'm just curious. You're the woman who can do anything... and you choose to stand on an _Earth beach_ of all places. _Why_?"

She raised her eyebrows, smiling slightly. "Backatcha," she said to him. "Which, if you detest Earth so much… what're you doing here?"

"Does that mean that you don't already _know_?" he asked. "I mean, considering that you're _supposedly_ the woman who knows _everything_." He started to walk around her, dominating her personal space, and she rolled her eyes, crossing her arms as she watched him. Her cell phone was still in hand, but there was no point in calling him. Not yet, anyway. Besides, this him couldn't know-

Ooh, _actually_ …

"Have to say, I expected more than this mopey thing standing before me." He shrugged, leaning close to whisper to her. "Guess they're right. You should never meet your heroes."

She smiled humorlessly at him. "Life is disappointment," she told him.

"But not for you, or so I'm told. Anna Monroe. They say she's the woman who can do everything and anything, _even_ turn the universe upside down and inside out in the _blink_ of an eye. So, I'll ask again. What are you doing standing on an Earth beach, when you could be _ruling_ it?"

She smiled, shaking her head and looking down.

"Oh, Harry, Harry, Harry," she said, laughing a little, before she looked back up at the waves. "What would be the point?"

"I just said," he told her, as if it were obvious. "You could be ruling it, and the rest of the universe."

She looked over at him lazily. He'd circled her and ended back up on her right side, though he was standing a little bit behind her, now.

"What do you want?"

He smirked. "To have a conversation with you, but you're making that rather difficult."

"Sorry, I'm just so _surprised_. All the things I'd heard about and you haven't even threatened me _once_. My tiny brain just gets ever so confused by these things."

She turned back towards the ocean. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw him pointing at her.

"Play the fool all you want, but I know the truth about you. The woman who saved Gallifrey from total annihilation at the hands of the daleks- or should I say plungers?- point being, ended the Time War in the blink of an eye, performed quite a few miracles in your time, that aside. You were traveling with the Doctor up until recently." He danced up closer to her. "So, imagine my surprise when my men report that you've been holed up here the past few months, hitting the surf and sand, or whatever it is these Earthlings do."

She raised her eyebrows, smiling slightly as she looked back at him. "You mean you _don't know_ what humans get up to on their beach days? I'm _shocked_ -"

She barely had time to see his hand flying at her face before stars danced before her eyes. When she came to, her body was sore and he was leaning over her.

"Was that _shocking_ enough for you?" he asked, searching her. "Because I'll tell you what's _shocking_ , you're absolutely _pathetic_ ," he spit at her. "The most powerful woman in the universe, they said, controller of the universe, they said, but here you are, down after _one hit_." He held up his finger, as if she hadn't just been there to get hit. "Just _one_. So, _Anna Monroe_ , tell me, are the stories lying, or are you?"

She searched his face before she shook her head.

"There's more than one way to be powerful," she told him. "You'd understand _that_ if you spent any meaningful amount of time outside of your own head." She saw the way he sneered, knew he was about to deliver another hit. She would've said it regardless. "How're the drums, Harry?"

She didn't look at him as she said it, touching the corner of her lip before she examined the blood that was on her finger. He _had_ hit her quite hard, after all. There was bound to be blood.

She let out a surprised and silent, "Okay," when she felt him grab her jaw, forcing him to look up at her.

"Say that again," he demanded her.

"How. Are the. Drums-"

He pushed her head back into the sand, grabbing a fistful of her shirt in his other hand. She let out a breath, searching his eyes.

If she thought the Doctor was manic, he had nothing on the way that this man looked right now. It was a mixture of mania and rage… but, if she looked closely enough, she could see the fear.

"If I were you, I would choose my next words with _great. Care_ ," he told her, quietly, as he searched her eyes. "What do you know about the drums?"

She barely smiled. "I know that they don't exist anymore-"

She let out a small noise of surprise when he flipped her over onto her stomach, pushing her face first into the sand. Her arm was twisted awkwardly behind her back and he had a fistful of hair that he was not gentle about pulling. She sucked in a breath, wondering if it was time to skedaddle, but also knowing that energy was precious. Unless he actually tried to hurt her (besides a punch here or there, which was standard for him), she couldn't act foolishly. Strategy was key, especially with a man like him.

There was a pause, his fist digging into her back as she focused on taking calming breaths. A moment later, he spoke.

"You will come quietly, or I kill _anybody_ who comes to help you. Am I being _very_ clear?"

She raised her eyebrows. Okay. Maybe it was time to-

He literally shook her.

"I said am I being- and none of that _teleportation nonsense, either._ You do that, and I kill _every single person_ in the area for _fifty miles_."

She raised her eyebrows. "And risk your chance to rule the Earth-"

He grabbed the back of her neck in a hold that was too tight, and she cried out, grimacing as she pushed her face into the sand.

"This tiny planet means absolutely _nothing_ to me, and I _absolutely_ will destroy it and everybody that is on it if you _do not cooperate_." He brought her ear closer to his mouth, and she felt his gross hot breath fanning the side of her head. "Do not test me, Anna Monroe. You're not the only being of _power_ , anymore."

She grit her teeth.

There were a lot of things she could do here. But, none of them would be as easy as simply doing as he said and cooperating. Besides, all else failed, she could always-

In the next moment, he pried her cell phone from her fingers. He'd released her hair to do so, so she looked back to see that he was _chucking_ her phone as _hard_ as he could into the ocean. He caught sight of her eyes and quickly grabbed her jaw. "Don't _think_ that your precious Doctor will save you either." He searched her eyes. "Am I making myself _very clear_?"

She tried to nod before a twinge of pain ran through her neck. In the next moment, she spoke. "Yes," she said, quietly.

" _Say it_ ," he demanded of her, and her brows pinched together. " _Say my name_."

She raised her eyebrows listlessly. "Yes, Harry."

She probably should've seen the hit coming, but she was still mildly surprised when he flipped her over, hitting her once, twice. He never delivered a third hit. Instead, he pulled her up none too gently by her arm, practically dragging her across the California beach that had been her home for the past three months.

None of his people even questioned why he had a random civilian in his hands. Instead, they merely observed, watching as he unceremoniously shoved her into the car before he climbed in after her, sitting in the seat facing hers.

She barely looked at him but when she did, she got a feeling she should look out the window. So, she did, watching the buildings roll by.

It was nearing sunset during winter, so not many people were out and about. Most people didn't like to visit the beach when it was cold, but she loved it, especially during the days when she'd still had rampant anxiety and even the _thought_ of being around people made her skin crawl.

She started to wonder, again, what her life would've been like without her mother. Would she have reached the full potential of her abilities faster? Or had the emotional abuse-

But, no, she couldn't give credit to anything that vile woman had done to her. Not for a single moment. She'd drown herself in those thoughts otherwise.

It was a thought she hadn't had in a very long time, this wondering about her life before, but considering her current company, she supposed it shouldn't surprise her. Especially not when she was sure about what he had planned for her.

He surprised her when he didn't speak to her during the car ride, though it was less surprising when she heard him use his many resources to acquire an empty warehouse. What company he kept was a different matter entirely, but a man who was running for prime minister should've been keeping a lower profile than this.

She frowned, looking over at him.

"Why did you come to the beach-"

"Speak again and I'll have the next pedestrian we see killed."

She didn't want to admit that it was anger that rushed through her in that moment, but, well, there was no other word to describe what she was feeling.

"Do that, and I'll _never_ answer your questions about the drums-"

He was on top of her in under a second, gripping her jaw tightly in his hand, the other curled painfully around her throat.

"I am your lord and master and you will _obey me_."

She ran through a list of things that she could do, in that moment. Teleport to the other side of the car, simply throw him off of herself, kick him in a sensitive area because right now, that would feel really good.

She had a feeling she couldn't do any of those things, but she smiled when she came to what she would do.

She winked at him before she teleported them both out of the car.

She felt a little bit woozy when they landed, but at the very least, she wasn't nauseas and there didn't appear to bleeding, or rather, more blood, at any rate. Still, she took note of this as she stood, watching Saxon look around the abandoned warehouse she'd dropped them in.

"You wanted to talk?" she asked, making a chair appear behind her. She pristinely sat down, delicately crossing one leg over the other, resting her elbow against the back of the chair. "Let's talk-"

He rushed her and she quickly teleported herself across the room, pleasantly surprised when she wasn't dizzier when it was done. She looked over at him, that anger starting to unfold through her.

"Or, I could just drop kick you into a supernova, really, it's your choice."

There was a savage bloodlust in his eyes, and his smile reflected just as much.

"You don't have it _in you_ to _kill me_." He started for her. "Guess the stories were exaggerated after all-"

She didn't even know why she was so pissed off. Perhaps because he reminded her of what had been done to her and with her being so close to what the Doctor had done (which paled in comparison, though she couldn't really unpack that particular can of worms right now). She wasn't usually one to give into her urges, but for the next thirty seconds, she found herself throwing him up and down, hitting the ceiling before he hit the ground.

When it was done, she still didn't feel exhausted or even woozy, and she smiled as she walked over to him.

"Are we talking, now?" she asked him.

He was barely banged up. He was a time lord, after all. What she'd done didn't seem to deter him, and he laughed.

"Is that all you are? Really? Just a bag of parlor tricks? I could do- I _have_ done everything that you've just done and _more_ -"

She was almost surprised when he hopped up, walking towards her without any sign that she'd done anything at all.

"-so what makes _you_ the most _powerful woman_ in the _universe_?" he spit at her. He'd backed her up into the wall, and he raised his eyebrows. " _Well_?" he demanded of her. " _I'm waiting_!"

All of her anger and all of her fear fled out of her in an instant as she remembered the truth. She was the one with the power here. Not him.

She barely smiled. "And you'll be waiting for the rest of your-"

She saw his fist fly up to punch her in the face, but it ended up flying straight through her head and to the cement wall beyond.

"Oh, I'm sorry, have I done something to make you angry?" she looked up at him innocently.

He sneered down at her. "So that's all that you really are," he said, leaning down over her. "Just a bag of _parlor tricks_." He looked at her disgusted. "I can't believe I ever even considered ruling the universe with you by my side." He got a pleased look on his face. "Though, in _that_ particular version of events, you were a mere pet rather than an _equal,_ if that's any consolation."

"Yeah, cause you're bad at making friends and need control."

He clicked his tongue at her. "Says the woman who won't even appear in front of me in a physical form. Quite sad, really. Who knew that all that _power_ could still make someone such a coward?"

She raised her eyebrows listlessly. Her body was starting to grow colder, and she was trying to decide between poofing out and baiting him on some more.

Her eyes barely widened as she remembered that the only way to win this game was to not play at all.

"Did you want to hear about the drums, or not?"

Pity of all things crossed his face, though it was amused. "Ooh, it's sad, really, still trying to desperately hold my attention, now that you see my interest in you is waning. The saddest thing is, I doubt you even have the answers that you claim to." He shook his head, looking away. "Pity, really. I wasted all that time getting to you, thinking I'd find some Greek god, and instead, I find this pathetic sniveling mess in it's place." He looked back down at her, annoyed and disgusted. "I had to fly in a _plane_ to get here. Do you have any idea what that's _like_? Riding around in such _primitive_ technology?" he searched her, disinterested. "I'd kill you for wasting my time, but you're currently too much of a coward to even face me properly, so… I guess we're done here."

She rolled her eyes, watching him walk away. She propped her leg up against the wall and crossed her arms, waiting for him to get halfway across the room before she spoke.

"The time lords put the drums in your head."

"I'm not listening!" he shouted back to her. "I'm too busy thinking up ways to kill you the next time we cross paths. How does getting stabbed sound? Too gauche?"

"The drums were real, Harry," she told him, and at that, he did stiffen, pausing where he was, though he didn't turn to look at her. "When the time lords found out the Doctor was using The Moment, they got desperate. Put a signal inside of your head so that they could pull themselves to where you were, thereby escaping the war."

He whirled back around to look at her. "So the time lords chose me," he said.

She felt a rush of actual anger, before she shook her head.

"'Chosen' is a moniker that butchers attach to lambs so that they can add nobility to a meaningless sacrifice."

He looked like he'd won something as he slowly prowled back over to her, his hands on his hips. "Last I heard, lamb was an Earth _delicacy_. Just as I was _chosen_ by the time lords to be their savior, but _you_ ruined that."

She laughed. "Savior?" she asked.

" _The time lords were_ your _masters_ ," she was supposed to say. " _And you fed right out of their hand_."

Strictly speaking, she didn't _have_ to follow her feelings. Bad things tended to happen when she didn't, so she didn't even know why, at this point, she bothered not to.

But, there was no part of her that wanted to say that to him. So, instead, she raised her eyebrows.

"You weren't their _savior_ , you were their _pawn_ ," she told him.

"Of course _you_ would say that," he told her. "I bet you've never been chosen for anything in your entire life. Always alone, always left in the cold and the dust like the piece of filth that you are."

"No, stop," she said, sarcastically. "Your words, they wound me."

"But see, I think they _do_ ," he told her, and she rolled her eyes before she looked up at him. He was currently towering over her, his arm resting above her head. "See, I've been at this a long time. I know damaged goods when I see them, and you, my dear…" he ran his finger along her jaw, "are _more_ than the definition of damaged goods." He leaned in, whispering in her ear. "Why _else_ would you have _accidentally_ made yourself physical again, if not because you _wanted_ me to do _this_?"

Pain bloomed through the back of her head before she felt the same pain blooming through her side. In the next moment, she felt herself sliding down to the ground, holding her pounding ribs.

She flinched when he whispered in her ear.

"You want me to hurt you because deep down, you know that this is what you deserve." He punctuated that with a kick to her stomach. When she opened her eyes, breathing hard, she saw that he was crouched down above her, caressing her cheek in a deceptively gentle touch. "Well, either that, or because the stories aren't true and you actually _aren't_ as powerful as you claim to be." He scoffed. "But I mean, _come on_. You saved Gallifrey. You teleported the both of us here in the blink of an eye." He leaned down, searching her eyes. "I think we both know what that means. Don't we, Anna?" he asked, his touch still deceptively soft.

She coughed, groaning. She curled in on herself, squeezing her eyes shut. "Yeah," she got out. "It means you're an utter manipulative _twat_ who knows a _surprising_ amount of-"

It wasn't a surprising amount of blows that he landed to her. Well, it was surprising in the sense that he landed a lot of them in such a short amount of time.

He once again crouched back down next to her, that gentle touch against her cheek. She automatically flinched away from it, and he laughed at that.

" _Denial will only make it hurt worse_ ," he sang. "Say it," he said. "Tell me the reason that you're _letting_ me hurt you. It'll feel _so much better_ in the long run."

She raised her eyebrows. "Aren't you even a little bit curious as to why I took the drums away?"

" _Oh, Anna_ ," he said, his tone as pitying as his words. "That's just _sad_. Still trying to _appease_ me by answering a question I don't even _care_ about anymore?" he sighed a long-suffering sigh. "Almost makes this not worth it. But I'll do it, if it'll help you admit the truth. I know you probably can't see this, that I'm only doing this to help you." He sighed again. "Maybe one day you'll realize this was for your own good."

She stopped at that, her eyes glued open, everything about her tense.

Something had happened when she'd utilized her full powers for the first time. It was like all the negative energy had washed out of her system and she'd been freed. The carnival incident was a knee-jerk reaction, but it didn't bother her as much as she'd let on; it was merely an incident of feeling like she'd had to tell him what had been done to her and act the way she had when she did.

Of course, traveling with him for the six years had obviously helped as well. She'd never felt more loved than she had during that time, and she felt like she was finally getting building blocks she'd never had.

When the angels had taken her energy, they must've taken all the shields she'd subconsciously built up against the emotional damage. It was worse than that, though. She'd been reset back to the emotional state she'd been in before she'd utilized the full potential of her powers.

Abuse did strange things to a person, no matter the type. The truth was, during that time in her life, she didn't fully believe that what had been done to her was abuse. Instead, she'd felt like everything that her mother had ever said about her were just facts and everything that she'd ever done to her had been deserved, wholly and truly.

But, hearing her mother's words (and although she'd rarely ever gotten physical with her) from this _psychopath,_ a man whom she _had_ accepted as mentally and physically and emotionally abusive confirmed everything she'd ever thought about her mother.

She had been emotionally abused.

Something about this allowed her to let go of everything that had ever been done to her, no longer letting it weigh her down.

Somehow, it made it okay to release the guilt of what had happened to her, too.

Something was happening inside of her chest. It was like it had been a barren dry land before and now, it was being consumed by water, refreshing and healing. She drew in a breath.

Suddenly, she was standing in front of him, who was kneeled down where she had been pressed up against the wall. He immediately stood up, whirling around to look at her wide eyed.

"I took away the drums because I had to, because they wouldn't have been taken away otherwise. But, I let you keep them at all because you believed that they made you who you are," she told him. "All that rage and anger and hatred, you thought that was driven by the drums, but it wasn't." she took a step towards him. "That always came from you. Who you are, that's who you chose to be. You can choose to be something different." She raised her eyebrows. "I would seriously consider it, because while ruling the universe is marvelous, I'm not sure that it truly fulfills you, or makes you happy. In the end, I think that's what counts."

He raised his eyebrows, crossing his arms. "Finished?" he asked, looking completely disinterested in what she was sure he would've referred to as her 'kumbaya' speech, if he knew what kumbaya actually meant. She didn't care. She smiled at him.

"I'll see you soon, Saxon," she told him.

Rage flew through his eyes and he started for her.

But, she'd already teleported away, leaving an empty space for him to fall through instead.

#####

Her energy was back up to full power. She could already feel that as she teleported herself to the correct Tardis, already starting up the gangway.

"Anna!" the Doctor said, surprised when he realized that it was her. "I thought you were going to call me- did you get your energy- An-"

She crushed her lips onto his.

Him rejecting her wouldn't hurt her as it would've done in the past. If he did, that was understandable; he was still in love with Rose, after all. The only thing that mattered was that she showed him how she felt, right there, in that moment. She wouldn't waste time hiding herself or her emotions. Not anymore. That wasn't who she was, nor who she wanted to be.

She meant what she'd said. People were the choices that they made. She wanted to choose to be the things that she'd always wanted to be but was too scared or too hurt to: she wanted to choose to be brave and selfless and kind.

Now, there were no more excuses to cling to. She was Anna Monroe, and she was terrifically happy to be exactly herself in every way.

She didn't realize that the Doctor hadn't pulled away from her until she realized that he was deepening the kiss. In the next moment, both of them were terrifically happy to be terrifically occupied with a different kind of terrific altogether.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: Okay, couple things about this chapter:  
> This chapter started out really dark and ended up really light. Honestly, if it were me, I would probably be suspicious that the Master had somehow infiltrated her mind and made her see what he wanted her to, but I want to dissuade you of that notion now. Anna has been abused + Anna has safeguards for mind stuff. I PROMISE you, Anna would know.  
> This is not a realistic portrayal of how quickly emotional scars heal, and it's not meant to be. Anna is a woman who can do literally everything in the universe. The only thing she had to do was give herself permission to heal and she did. That's not to say that things might not come up again later in a much smaller scale, but for now, she's healed and that's great.  
> I know I kind of pulled a fast one here with the whole, "Let me dangle the Master in all y'alls face and then take him away" sort of deal, so I'm sorry about that. I don't want it to come across like I just wanted to have the shock factor of having him there without actually seeing it through. I really feel like that does a disservice to readers. I understand that that's sort of what ended up happening, but it wasn't my intention. I'm literally writing this section off the top of my head and there was one version of events where he did end up breaking her and she ended up being… Well, not his pet, but definitely a broken down version of herself. I feel like that wouldn't be in line with the message of the story, which is more along the lines of Anna breaking the cycle of abuse instead of being pushed further into it. The most that I can do is promise to do my best not to pull something like this in the future, and hopefully, y'all will continue reading so that you can see me keeping my promise.  
> PSA: The National Domestic Violence Hotline is 1-800-799-7233. If you or someone you know is suffering, don't hesitate to reach out. There's always resources and no matter how alone you feel, I promise you, you aren't.


	12. The Stories of Anna Monroe

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Short Short SHORT chapter today. Shortest one I've written. It's almost an interlude or an add on to chapter fourteen, but it's its' own separate chapter for reasons.  
> Chapter title based on: "The Stories of Anton Chekov."  
> I still don't own Doctor Who.

For the first time in a long time, Anna was completely and utterly in bliss. There were no complications, no 'but this might happen' lingering in the back of her mind. There was no fear.

Just utter and complete contentment resting in her heart.

"Not that I'm in the slightest complaining," the Doctor suddenly spoke, the words rumbling through his bare chest, which she was currently resting on. "But you seem to have forgiven me without any sort of apology from me. I guess fifty years is enough time for anybody's anger to disappear, but-"

She frowned. "Hold on, what?" she asked. She sat up, looking at him.

"What?" he asked her.

"Fifty years?"

"Well, yeah, give or take, I suppose. Was it longer for you?" he asked her. "I suppose that makes even more sense-"

Her mouth dropped open and she stared at him. "It's been _three months_ for me," she told him.

He raised his eyebrows. "What?" he asked, before he propped himself up on his elbow. "Hold on, if it's only been three months, then why have you forgiven me?"

They were now sat up side by side, searching the other one.

"Fifty years?" she asked him, in lieu of answering his question. "You've been on your own for fifty years? Did you- did you think that I'd abandoned you?"

He snorted. "Obviously not," he told her. "But that's not important, what're you doing here-"

"It is to me," she insisted. "Why didn't you try to get into contact with me, come and visit me, something?"

"Because I'd hurt you," he told her. "Worse than I'd ever intended, worse than I'd ever wanted to. I am so sorry-"

"That doesn't mean that you should've had to have been on your own for fifty years- Hold on," she said, searching him. "Were you on your own for fifty years?"

He looked like he wanted to object, but she could see it in his eyes, the same emotion she'd had back at Van Statten's museum when she realized the only way that she would get her questions answered was if she answered his.

He hesitated. "I mean, not entirely," he told her. "There were people here and there, people I picked up for a trip or two, but it was never anything permanent."

She furrowed her brow. "Why not?"

He looked at her like the answer was obvious. "I was waiting for you to call me, and when you did finally do that, I didn't want you to feel as if I'd replaced you or I was too impatient to wait for you and just got bored and moved onto the next person, because I haven't," he implored with her. "There will always be a place in my hearts for Rose, but I've spent the past fifty years accepting that she's not coming back. It means that I have to focus on what I _do_ have, and what I have is you. I'm-I'm so thrilled that you still want me in the way that you used to, and if you'll have me, then you- well, you _can_ have me. There's nothing I want more than that." He hesitated, searching her. "I just don't want you to think that this is what you have to do, to appease me or to appease my anger or…" he rubbed a hand down his face, his eyes wide as he looked down at the bed, realizing something that he hadn't even begun to think of before. "Or because you're afraid of what'll happen if you don't."

He looked like he'd swallowed something too big, and she raised her eyebrows.

"No, hey," she said, shaking her head. She brought his face up to meet hers, and he looked as terrified as he apparently thought she ought to. She shook her head again for good measure. "I'm not afraid of you," she told him, quietly. "There's nothing that you could ever do that would make me afraid of you."

"I hurt you," he said quietly. "And if you've only had three months-"

"Three months is more than enough time to realize that what you did to me… It was shitty and it was horrible, but you're king of the self destructive." He looked surprised by that, but didn't otherwise speak. "After loving Rose as fiercely as you did and losing her like you did, and then adding the fact that I had come back but I was much more breakable than you thought I was… You were trying to push me away permanently by doing the thing that you knew would hurt me the most, so that you wouldn't have to lose me in the same horrible way you'd lost Rose."

Surprise rested in his eyes for a different reason, now.

"That doesn't make it okay, and that doesn't make it right, but you are sorry. I know that, in my heart of hearts, as deep as it can be, that you are sorry for what you did to me. More importantly, I know that you won't hurt me like this again."

She almost smirked, about to tell him about the line of Doctors out the door who would happily show him the error of his ways if he did (a threat she knew they'd more than happily fulfill), but she knew she'd never actually let him hurt himself like that, and that aside, saying it out loud wouldn't come across as funny as it sounded in her mind (nor did it feel appropriate, and this was serious, especially what she was about to say).

She searched him, trying to think of the best way to phrase this. "Besides which, but just as importantly, if not more so… You are the man who forgives." His brows furrowed in confusion. "No matter how bad the deed, no matter what they've done, you are the man who forgives the worst of the worst for every bad thing that they have ever done." She drew him closer to her. "You are the man who forgives," she told him, searching his eyes. "But I think you forget that sometimes, you're the man who needs to be forgiven."

His eyes widened, shock so strong that it raced up through her fingertips into her hands.

She spoke quieter. "From the bottom of my heart… I forgive you."

No sooner had she finished speaking then he was suddenly on top of her, kissing her with a more animalistic fervor than he had been before. Gone was the softness and the happiness and the relief that had been present before. Now it was just a desperation and animal need to dominate, to show the truth.

She was his, and he was hers, and that would be true for as long as they would have each other.

#####

It could've been weeks later that they'd finally come to a rest. Anna was finally asleep in his arms, her back pressed against his chest, her chest rising and falling in a comfortable pace. He barely had himself propped up on his elbow so that he could run his fingers gently through her hair.

How could he have gotten so marvelously lucky, he wondered? He could he have found someone that could love him so deeply and so widely that she would forgive the worst thing he could've ever done to her? He'd been so cruel and so unkind, and even he'd expected her to turn around and never look back. Yet, not only had she come back to him, she'd forgiven him completely for what he'd done. Now, she was lying peacefully in his arms, completely healed of everything that he'd done to her.

How could he have gotten so lucky as to be loved by someone so amazing?

He'd meant what he'd said. There would always be a place for Rose in his hearts. But, fifty years had passed, and he knew that she wasn't coming back to him.

But, Anna had. She was here and whole and she wanted him as much as he wanted her. He had to focus on what he had so that maybe he could find a semblance of the happiness he'd always wanted. Even if some part of him never believed he fully deserved it.

The man who forgives, she'd called him. That's what he did, but it wasn't all that he did. He'd had his fair share of darker moments. The Moment had proven that, more than anything had. But, that was what else she'd said. The man who needs to be forgiven.

He planted a gentle kiss on the top of her head, and she barely readjusted before her breath was back to an even pace. He would promised himself that he would be a man worthy of her forgiveness, but more than that, he promised himself that he would do better this time around. He would treat her better, and more than that, he would treat her right. The way she deserved to be treated.

He would prove that he was a man worthy of a woman as incredible as Anna Monroe.

He would start right now-

Well, no, he would wait until she had gotten a full night's sleep. He smirked as he thought about the spectacular time they'd just had, but it was contentment that filled his hearts as he lay back down on the bed, pulling her to his chest completely as he thought about all the spectacular times they would have.

What a wonderful life that would be.


	13. War

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This here's a two parter titled "War and Time".   
> Anyway, I'm really excited for you guys to read it. I don't often compliment my own work, but honestly, I think this mini story arc is really interesting in and of itself in the themes that it explores. Hope you enjoy!  
> Chapter title based on, "War and Peace."  
> No, wait... Let me check... Nope, I still don't own Doctor Who.

Anna's first mistake was stepping out of the Tardis.

Anna's second mistake was openly panicking.

There wasn't anything to openly panic about. They appeared to have landed on some random plaza on what appeared to early 21st century Earth. What, exactly, could make her panic so badly that she'd openly clutch at the Doctor's jacket sleeve, shaking her head?

"Something's wrong," she told him. "Something's-something's really-"

She cried out, folding over onto him.

"Why am I panicking?" she asked herself quietly, clutching onto him desperately.

"You're not panicking- I mean, you are, but you're in loads of pain right now, can't you tell? Come on, let's-"

She cried out, dropping to the pavement below. Her eyes widened and she searched the pavement below her, shaking her head.

"This-this isn't- Oh, damn it, pain is still a trigger."

That was the last coherent thing she said before the pain overtook her completely and she fell to the plaza floor below, writhing in pain.

The Doctor's words were just words, then. She'd no idea what he was saying or why he was saying it. When she looked past him, she saw a purple sky above. She smiled at the hole in the sky, at the colors and lights and energy dancing around it, and she 'ran' her fingers over it, imagining that it was getting bigger. Much to her delight, it started to get bigger.

"Look-look at that," she managed to get out. "So… So pretty…"

"… need you to listen to me, Anna, look at me."

She raised her eyebrows, looking over at him. There was something on the peripheral's of her senses, something sharp and hot and awful all at the same time, but she ignored it, barely frowning as she looked at him. She raised her eyebrows, something like pain shooting through her face, but she ignored it in favor of seeing him.

"You're so… beautiful…" she whispered, running her hand over his cheek.

Even with the panicked look on his face, there was something about him that she couldn't describe. Just a wonder and a beauty to him that she'd never seen before.

"Anna, listen to me, that thing in the sky is outputting a lot of energy. I need you to contain it. Can you do that for me? Can you contain it?"

She raised her eyebrows. "But why would you want to contain something so beautiful?" she asked him, looking over at it. "It's… amazing."

"… at me, look at me!" she looked over at him to see that his face looked so worried. She understood why with his next words. "You need to contain it because it's not just outputting a lot of energy. If you don't contain it, there's a possibility that it might knock Earth and the moon out of orbit."

She frowned. "Oh, no, no, we can't have that, can we?" she asked. She put her arm up-

Well, she didn't want to destroy it. She smiled as she put it into one of the alternate dimensions, creating a containment field so that it wouldn't hurt the occupants.

That was her third mistake.

Right after she'd done so, pain filled her until she was nothing but a howling void of it.

#####

The Doctor had been having a good day.

He'd just had another adventure with the Ponds, and had dropped them back off at the home he'd gifted to them when he'd thought it was the end (mind, he still would've done even if it hadn't been. It was time for Amelia Pond to become Amy Williams, no matter how much it hurt him to do so).

That was why it _had_ been a good day. He was always sadder after he dropped the Ponds back at home. Their time was coming to an end, he could sense it. Amelia Pond was growing up. There was no room for Raggedy Men in her life anymore, larger than life though he might be.

Apparently, the Tardis sensed his growing sadness because, nearly a moment later, he heard the telltale beeping that something was amiss.

"Hello, hello, hello, what's this, then?"

He pulled the monitor over to him to see what it was, and it was troubling.

"Huge energy spike just above the Earth, _huge_ energy spike, big enough to knock the moon and the Earth out of orbit, correction, very, very _bad_ energy spike, on my way!"

He pushed buttons and pulled levers and not a second later, he was in orbit above the Earth while retaining a stable orbit so that the Tardis didn't automatically get pulled into the Earth's gravity. He looked at the thing on the monitor.

"Hello you beautiful thing, you dangerous, nasty, beautiful thing."

He had no idea what it was. It looked like an artist's rendition of a miniature black hole, full liberties taken with lightning shooting out of it as well as colors that never would've been present around a real black hole. It was tiny, though, and that was the good thing. It meant that containing it ought to be-

… A breeze.

He grabbed the monitor, scouring it with his eyes.

"Where the hell did that just-"

He quickly ran down the stairs and across the landing, flinging the doors open.

Earth was sitting stationary and peaceful, and both it and the moon were still in place. The weird anomalous thing had just… up and vanished, the backdrop now the same starry sky it had always been.

"But… But weird anomalous things don't just disappear!" he said to no one as he closed the door, starting back up to the console and getting there in two seconds flat. "Where did it run off to? Must've left a trail of some kind… ha! Gotcha, you sneaky anomalous anomaly. Right! That's not great. Best get there quickly, then."

The readings read that the trail led to the Earth. Were that actually the case, it was a wonder Earth hadn't already been knocked out of orbit. Maybe it already had. He didn't have time to run scans if he had any hope of containing this thing.

He stepped out of the Tardis moments later. He was on Earth, early 21st century. He didn't find any anomalous anomalies. What he did find was his past self, clutching a girl in his arms as she writhed around in obvious pain.

"What happened?" he asked, running up to them and kneeling down next to them. He did a quick scan of the sonic to find something that made his eyebrows raise in surprise. "Okay, what? That's just- that's just-"

"It doesn't matter, help me get her into-" he started, and he raised his eyebrows, looking up at his past self.

"The Tardis."

His Tardis, which had apparently vanished into thin air.

"Did you park her correctly?" he asked. "Maybe she's drifted off to the Dark Ages."

"I parked her just fine, help me get her into your Tardis, then."

It obviously wasn't Rose that he held in his hands. He'd known that from the moment he laid eyes on her. But, it wasn't Donna, and it certainly wasn't Martha. He frowned, looking down at the woman.

"Hold on, who is she?"

His past self's head snapped up to look at him. "What?"

"Who is this? I don't remember traveling with her, who is she?"

He looked desperately lost and that confused him to no end. "Anna," he said, almost helplessly.

He furrowed his brows. "Anna who?"

His question was punctuated by screaming.

#####

"But who is she?"

"Stop _asking_ me that!" he shouted at his future self, his hearts breaking in his chest at the prospect that he didn't remember Anna. He was running through a thousand reasons why that was true, but the most obvious one was staring him in the face: she'd undone what she did and now, he didn't remember her.

It was in the air all around him, that feeling that time was just… off. It itched like a physical thing, something crawling underneath his skin, and he hadn't noticed it because he'd been so preoccupied with Anna writhing in pain before she'd simply devolved into screaming. At least she was no longer screaming, but she was still writhing so hard that it would've been a struggle to carry her if he were human, and, oh yes, if he weren't so heartsbroken at the prospect of a future where she wasn't in his life.

He set her down in the medbay, planting a quick kiss on her forehead before he quickly ran to the medbay computers.

It was different. His was three beds lined up in a row with medical equipment facing it and computers on the walls. This him had a circular medbay with a single column in the middle with computer screens lining it, eight beds around that. He had no idea where the medical equipment was, but he whipped out his glasses, about to start a scan.

He was surprised to find that a scan was already in progress, and raised his eyebrows, slightly impressed. That was a good feature, why hadn't he thought of that? He didn't dwell on this long when the scan came back and said that there was no injury available to treat and that the patient was a picture of absolute and complete health, that couldn't be right, she was in pain and she'd been screaming-

"Oi," he heard from behind him, and he looked back to see that his future self (and didn't his hearts just ache at the thought). "She seems to have stopped writhing around, which is the good news. Scans from the sonic show that she's completely healthy, but she's got an unusual amount of energy coming off of her, I mean, that's- wow, that's just- hats off to her, how in the _world_ is she doing that?"

Pain filled him and he moved to Anna's side, grabbing a stool before he plopped down on it, grabbing her hand. She wasn't warm to the touch and her skin didn't seem to be coming off, so that was, at the very least, good news. "You don't remember her at all?" he asked, looking to his future self a moment later, though it terrified him to no end to take his eyes off of her, for fear that she would vanish any moment. "Not even a little?"

His future self glanced between him and the screwdriver (which was a much bulkier model than his was, as well as a different color) before he did a double take on the look on his face.

"No, absolutely none," he said, before he looked back at the screwdriver, casually observing it even though the Doctor knew that he was now trying to covertly gain information. "Why? Who is she?"

"Look at her."

He raised his eyebrows before he glanced over at his past self, pretending to calibrate the sonic.

"What for?"

"Just do it," he demanded, and his future self sighed before he did as he was asked, looking down at her. "Really look. Can you sense anything about her, anything at all?"

He raised his eyebrows before he finally pocketed his screwdriver. He frowned, wringing his hands out… before they slowed down, and he raised his eyebrows even higher.

"Ooh, that's… that's odd, that's very… very odd, that's-" he let out an honest to goodness giggle before he shook his head. "It's like it's on the edge of my senses," he said, tapping his temple, before he kneeled down next to the bed, taking her hand in his. "but I can't quite… grasp it." He didn't take his eyes off of hers, starting to reach out to put her hair behind her ear before he didn't, instead, clasping her hand in both of his. "Who is she?" he asked, glancing over at his counterpart.

He felt misery gliding through him and he looked down at Anna, wanting nothing more than to grab her and take her to his Tardis, create a time shield around them and just be there. Instead, he rubbed at his jaw before he cleared the lump from his throat as he accepted the truth he hadn't wanted to face.

"We're-we're from a different timeline," he told him, not looking at him. He raised his eyebrows. "And, in it… she's the woman who ended the Time War so we didn't have to."

He couldn't have raised the tension in here higher or faster if he'd tried. Despite this, when he looked over at his counterpart, he saw the clear calm demeanor he was trying to portray, though he was no longer holding Anna's hand, clasping them on the bed in front of them as he raised his eyebrows.

"How'd she accomplish that then?"

He explained what she'd done in short succinct sentences. The more he spoke, the more it was obvious his counterpart didn't believe him.

"So, what you're saying is that a Duex Ex Machina _literally_ crashed out of the sky and just saved the day? Just like that? Hm?"

"You're missing the point."

"And what point is that?" he asked, his voice raising while the litany of emotions resting on his face sparked more fiercely.

"In order for you to exist, it would mean that…" he shook his head, swallowing as he looked back at Anna, who was still unconscious, resting. "I asked her once to undo what she'd done, to not end the Time War, and I told her that I never would again, but for you to exist, it would mean that I did it again, that I hurt her, again."

He kissed her hand, shaking his head.

"I'm sorry," he whispered. "I'm _so sorry_."

Fury mounted in the room…

Before it all just dropped out, all at once, just like that. He couldn't care less. All that he cared about was Anna as he searched her face, looking for any sign that she might be coming back to him.

He was suddenly cut off from his future self's emotions, and he barely frowned, glancing back to see that he was still in the room, the emotions had just vanished.

"How'd you say you met her, again?"

He felt annoyance flutter through him, turning back to look at Anna.

"Weren't you listening the first time?" he asked.

"I was, I was," he said, delicately. "No, it's just, maybe I'll be able to sense the timeline, get a clearer picture if you explain it in better detail."

He sighed, about to explain, before he realized that might not be the best idea. If time had been rewritten and it wasn't getting written back because he'd done this horrible atrocity to her again, did he really want to remember that? Especially if it meant that he could remember what it was like for his people to be saved before... Well, simply put, they weren't (saved from the fate that he'd then promptly been unable to remember due to timelines and all)?

But, maybe things could be put back the way that they were meant to. He wouldn't be the Doctor if he didn't try, no matter how terrifying the prospect of something like hope was at this juncture.

"She dropped out of the sky and I took her into the Tardis, where she told me that-"

"What was she wearing?"

"Pardon?"

"What was she wearing? Simple enough question, I think."

"What does it _matter_?" he snapped at him.

"Details are key. _Remember_?"

He frowned, looking back at his future self. "What… are you talking about?"

His future self raised his eyebrows listlessly. "The fact that you haven't put the puzzle pieces together is proof enough, I think."

Anger rolled through him as volatile as a volcano. He stood.

"Proof of _what_?" he demanded.

His future self held up his hands placatingly before he nodded at him. "Before I explain," he said, calming, soothing. "I'd like to get a quick glimpse in your mind. Just to get proof of what I'm about to say before I say it, because I don't think that you'll believe it otherwise."

He frowned before he barely tilted his chin up.

This wouldn't normally be allowed, or even advisable, something that even he hadn't tried. Explaining why would be too complicated with a language as simple as English, but it was almost like trying to force, say, a toaster to occupy the same space twice. It was safer because they weren't the same timeline version, the molecules and atoms just different enough that they could almost be considered two different people. He'd no idea if that would make it more comfortable.

Still, he nodded at him, quickly shielding any potential future knowledge that this him wasn't supposed to have.

That was a first, he thought, as his future self walked over to him. A past him having knowledge that a future him wasn't supposed to. The emotions burst up in him and he almost started to laugh hysterical at the thought, but he grit his teeth and kept his face even, even as his future self lined up his fingers where they needed to be.

A moment later, he felt the presence of himself in his mind.

He immediately wanted to throw up.

He hadn't noticed it before, what with everything that had been going on. It made it easier for his mind to shield him from the trauma, eager to do so.

He could always sense the time lords, not even distance being an issue. It was like a static, a background hum in his mind, comforting and solid and there, even during the Time War.

There was something about someone touching his mind to theirs that made it something that could no longer be ignored.

The time lords were gone.

There was no static, no hum, not a single iota of any person in his mind. He immediately stumbled back and away, his chest heaving as he got on his hands and knees. His mind desperately searched for anything, anybody, but there was nobody to be found and nothing to reach out to.

The time lords were gone and he threw his face in his hands and he wept.

He wasn't ashamed to admit it. It was like being cut off from a vital part of himself, a piece of him that he took for granted but that he would never get back. He let out a yell of rage before he let out another, shaking his head as he curled up into a ball, smashing first his hand and then his foot down onto the floor.

He wanted to rip apart this medbay piece by piece, shred everything down until it was absolutely nothing. He wanted to do that to the rest of the universe.

It was so unfair. Everything hurt and the only thing he wanted, in that moment, was for things to be as they were supposed to, Anna having saved him and the rest of Gallifrey from total destruction.

"Okay, okay, okay, just look at me, look at me."

He was breathing erratically, his chest heaving from the effort of it as he looked over at his future self, his eyes wild and everything about him ready to rip apart the very fabric of time. He felt like a wild animal, trapped and cornered, ready and willing to rip everything apart if it meant escape.

"Here," he said, his hands outstretched as he offered the mental touch his mind so desperately craved.

He would vehemently deny that he made any sort of whimpering sound before he gratefully leaned into the touch, tears spilling down his face.

It wasn't enough, like literally putting a bandaid on a bullet wound. It was made all the worse by the fact that it was his own mental touch, instead of somebody else's. There was no way to compare it to something a human experienced in relation to how it didn't really help. But, it was something, and he felt the injured animal his mind had become eagerly accepting the touch, even as it whined that it needed more. More than this simple, useless touch, but how it begged that touch to not release under any circumstances.

"Come with me," he said, quietly.

He gasped desperately. His mind wanted nothing more than to comply if it meant that this mental touch wasn't disappearing. It was like asking someone who'd broken all of their bones to not accept morphine right after it had happened.

But…

"Anna," he gasped out.

 _She's not important_ , some selfish, greedy, traumatized part of his mind tried to tell him, trying to convince him that keeping the mental touch was much bigger than a simple human girl.

His urges won out when his future self spoke, so quietly and reassuringly.

"I've got her," he murmured soothingly. He gasped again, grateful this time when he felt those same emotions wafting through his mind, and he sobbed before he nodded.

"Okay," he whispered. "Okay."

He allowed himself to be led away, never knowing what he was leaving behind. Or rather, what mess he was leaving Anna with.

#####

Before Anna had utilized the full potential of her powers, she'd get these migraines. She didn't figure out what they were until she connected it with anytime that she'd tried to do something she didn't have enough energy for. Granted, it was for much bigger things than what she'd normally try to accomplish in those days, which was to simply influence the getting of a job or feeling out the best day to head to an amusement park so that there would be the least amount of people.

In the days she'd been building up to doing big things consciously, she'd find that she couldn't, but later, she'd have the mother of all migraines.

When Anna awoke, she was having what she now fondly referred to as a Migraine of Old. She gasped, tears coming to her eyes as she folded into a small ball on her side, whimpering as she tried to remember something, anything.

The Doctor-

_The Doctor._

He'd asked her out on a date, a proper one, and instead, she'd gotten a strange and beautiful thing in a purple sky where blue should've been.

"It's _Anna_ , right?" an unfamiliar British voice asked, but it wasn't hard to guess who it was. "Sorry, don't know your last name. Not getting much from the past self either. I have to applaud you, you've thoroughly incapacitated him. Job well done."

She flinched when on each individual slow clap. None of his words made an iota of sense. She frowned, which actually felt good to her migraine addled mind.

"Not much that can do that to a time lord, but while we're on the subject of particularly hard things to do, you've also managed to trick my sensors into reading you as human. So, _Anna_. Wanna tell me who and what you are, and what exactly you did to me?"

It was a testament to how much she'd healed that Anna didn't outright apologize, or beg him to explain. She didn't shrivel from his anger. She wasn't at all scared. She was so healed, in fact, that it never even crossed her mind that she should be.

"I don't understand," she told him, quietly, even as the act of speaking caused her immeasurable pain. "We've met before-"

She frowned before she bit her lip to stifle the cry of her trying to move.

"I don't understand," she whispered.

It occurred to her that she should try to heal herself before she had a feeling that she shouldn't. Something in her whined at that, but the last time she hadn't followed a feeling had resulted in her nearly being something much more broken down for the likes of Harold Saxon. It was with some reluctance that she didn't.

"Oh, yes, I'm well aware that we've met before," he said. She finally encouraged herself to shift to a sitting position, even as she swayed and she felt like she was going to scream. As it was, she clutched at the bench, every part of her body tense. She was still working up to looking at him. "Proof of that is sitting broken down in my room. Sedated, bless. Poor thing. Like I said, not much what can do that to a time lord, but I think that I figured it out. See, I was just going to shift through his memories, see if I could find where they didn't fit. No replaced memory is ever really perfect, there's usually artifacts left behind. Figured there'd be loads of them, what with this being me and it being my big brain and you being, apparently, a simple human.

"Turns out, it was much worse than a few simple artifacts. Do you know what I found, Anna? You'd turned him so inside out that he believed that he could feel other _time lords_."

He'd devolved into a raging sort of anger at this point. She could feel it from across the room where she sat on a cold, hard metal bench.

He took a moment to compose himself before he spoke.

"Bet that made it loads easier to sneak into his mind and change whatever your pretty little head desired, considering that it was a story he wanted to believe. I've found that's usually key to making any hypnotizing or change of the mind easier. If the subject wants to believe it, they won't poke inconvenient little holes in your story."

She felt tears lining the bottom of her eyes and her lower lip wobbled, but she bit her lip, managing to hold back the tears.

"Oh, I'm sorry," he said, his words mocking her. "Have I said something to upset you?"

"You're not _making_ any sense!" she told him, finally giving herself permission to fold on herself, putting her elbows on her knees as she dug the heels of her hands into her eyes. "You've met me, you _are_ him, this doesn't-"

"In _fact, you've_ turned him _so_ upside down that _he_ believes that _this_ is just another _timeline_."

Her eyes shot up to his at that, searching him. Her eyes crinkled around the edges at the pain she was met with, but she couldn't completely stop herself from looking at him. He was just so angry.

" _What_?"

The Doctor was old, but it had never shown more than it did in that moment. He was older than most civilizations that had already turned to dust, and he had no patience left with her.

" _Don't._ "

The television show rarely showed his anger, and if it was, it was downplayed as it had been with Demon's Run.

This? This was an anger that translated to a predator choosing how best to rip apart his prey in the most painful way possible while also dragging out the pain for as long as possible.

His lip curled before he let out a breath through his nose. He was hunched over, his hands balled up into fists in his trouser pockets.

"Now, it is one thing to alter me. I understand the urge, all that power, the spaceship, the traveling, the _glamour_." He sneered at her. "And all that _adoration_. He practically worships you, I felt it in his mind."

All sneer was lost, and he looked like he was controlling himself. He looked like it was just barely.

"It is another thing. _Entirely_. To alter someone _so completely that he can feel the minds of the very race that he destroyed, by using the very thing he wished he could take back most of all,_ " and it was at this point he started shouting, " _so that you can play the_ bloody savior so that he'll worship you!"

He hit the glass and she flinched at that, but not because she was afraid. It was because the noise was too loud.

It cracked under his fist and he placed his hand flat against it, breathing hard. He looked at her, pointing his finger at her, before he spoke.

"I'm giving you one chance to tell me how you did it. One. Or I promise you, I will _sedate you and rip through your mind myself until there is nothing left_."

He was saying that they were in a different timeline. The timeline, in fact, where she'd never come here.

The timeline that, in fact, the television show was based on.

She sobbed, putting her forehead into her hands. It was the sort of sobbing that made everything shake. Her shoulders, her legs, even her chest was heaving with the effort it was taking to breathe.

"The whole point was so that you wouldn't-wouldn't have to suffer, but-but how-how am I- how can I-"

She paused, sniffling as the pain started to recede.

She didn't even realize that the sheer emotion in the room was contributing to the Migraine of Old until the rage pulled back, dissipating almost entirely. She sobbed again, still pushing her forehead into her hands, but it was with less voracity, a quiet sort of sobbing. At this point, she was crying simply because she couldn't stop.

"You weren't doing it because you wanted to brainwash me. You were doing it because you wanted to help."

She nodded, sobbing into her hands, not even realizing that what she was doing was basically confirming his belief. She was still in too much pain to realize something like that.

"Can you tell me what you are?" he asked, quietly, his voice at a much more agreeable level.

She shook her head. "N-no," she said. "I don't- there's not really a name for what I am."

"So you're alone, then."

It wasn't malicious. It was spoken sadly, in it's own way. She realized a moment later that she'd basically confirmed his theory with what she'd said.

"No, I-" she started, before she pushed her forehead into her hand, making a noise of pain.

"Are you still in pain?"

"Still?"

She looked up at him through squinted vision.

"What do you remember about arriving here?"

She shook her head. "Not much," she admitted, looking back down at the floor. It was easier if she didn't try to focus on anything.

"You were in pain. Do you remember that?"

"Vaguely," she said, quietly. She frowned. "Is he all right?"

"Who?"

"You," she told him.

He didn't try to sugarcoat it. "No, he isn't," he said, simply. She looked up at him, though one eye was closed, the other fighting to remain open. He was much more relaxed, though, his arm up over his head as he leaned against the wall. "You might've been trying to help him, to take his pain, and I applaud you for that, really, I do. I understand the urge, especially if you're as telepathic and empathic as you appear to be," she raised her eyebrow at the fact that he'd just guessed that she was empathic. "His mind must've been screaming when you first met. But, I don't think you fully understand what it is that you've done." She bit her lip, not sure that waiting for him to finish was wise but not sure how to interrupt him. "He had to feel that loss all over again…"

Though Anna didn't know it, the Doctor was doing event math.

He started to put the puzzle pieces together, that she must've just changed him when he'd first met them. That's why she'd been in so much pain before, why she was writhing and screaming. The pain of changing the mind of a time lord, no matter how much it might've been willing to change and therefore pliable it might've been, would've been enormous.

But then, he thought of the events surrounding him meeting them. He'd nearly completely forgotten the anomalous anomaly at the prospect that he'd forgotten an entire companion (because the pain on his past self's face at seeing her in pain led him to think that, at the very least, that's what she was).

The sort of anomalous anomaly that might've occurred because time had been rewritten on a scale that large.

That was already more than enough proof. The fact that he remembered, in the next moment, that the Tardis had disappeared without making a sound… as if it could no longer exist in the reality it did…

Well, that was just icing on the cake.

She didn't know he was thinking any of these thoughts, so she didn't understand why he was suddenly freezing as he was, searching her. She could glean from the emotion behind his mask that he was doing calculations, putting puzzle pieces together. But, she decided a very long time ago that reading minds without permission was a violation of someone at a fundamental level, and so she did not know his thoughts, or why he appeared to be letting her out of the cell he'd constructed for her.

Her mind hadn't put together that that's what it was until she realized that thing below her could barely qualify as a bed, the glass in front of her lowering into the floor. It hadn't occurred to her that she was his prisoner until he was already freeing her.

Well, it hadn't occurred to her that he _thought_ she was his prisoner until that moment.

He looked like he didn't know where to start. For a moment, he looked like a child who'd been caught with his hand in the candy jar, properly chastised. He opened and closed his mouth a few times before realization and then reassurance crossed his face.

"Come on," he said, moving towards her. "Let's get you sorted, eh?"

She'd healed so completely that she had no reason to fear him as he moved to her, no reason not to accept his offer of help to get her to the medbay. He gently slid his arm underneath hers when she answered that she didn't think she could walk by herself, and she allowed him to because she wasn't afraid of him or the anger he'd shown.

It was a miracle in and of itself.

What was not a miracle was the pain she was in, and she sobbed, leaning heavily against him as they walked.

"Can you tell me why you're in so much pain?" he gently asked her as they walked down the hall.

She pushed her head into his shoulder in response, sobbing once more.

"Okay, okay, hang about, we're almost…" he seemed to realize something, and a gentle wave of guilt wafted between them. "There," he said, with a note more misery than he'd had before (because he'd been so wrapped up in the idea that he'd been brainwashed, he hadn't even taken into consideration that the two of them were existing on the same Tardis and she wasn't throwing an iota of a fit). "Picking you up, now," he told her, and before she had a chance to speak (which she would've gladly thanked him, because walking was an effort she didn't want to undertake), he swept her up into his arms and she curled deeply into his chest.

She felt the reassurance floating off of him in waves, gently floating down to her and into her through the spots he was touching her arms. She realized, a moment later, that it wasn't trying to be reassurance. It was trying to be pain relief. She wondered why the two felt so similar.

In her haze of thoughts, she remembered something that the Doctor had said about how she wasn't necessarily panicking, that it was more pain she felt. Pain had always been a trigger for anxiety, which was why she'd spent most of her life avoiding pain at all cost.

Once she'd started to get the hang of her powers, for one reason or another, she'd accidentally decided that she wouldn't feel pain but that her body would still act like it was in pain. It got to a point where she stopped feeling pain until something was broken.

It made sense, then, that because pain was a trigger for her anxiety, she would only be feeling the anxiety.

She wondered then why the pain relief translated into reassurance-

Before she realized that she felt that he was basically saying, _It's all right that you're in pain and I fully acknowledge that you are and in doing so I take your pain._ Considering _why_ the pain was a trigger for her anxiety, that made total sense, even if it was a little sad.

Now that she'd realized all of that, it would slowly filter out. She'd be able to feel pain again, which didn't sound like a lot of fun, but not much could actually put her in that much pain anymore. She was her, after all, able to do everything and anything her little heart desired.

He finally made it to the medbay, setting her down on a bed. It wasn't long after that that he injected her with some pain relief and she breathed a sigh of relief that it started working nearly right away.

"Feeling better?"

"Much," she said. "Thanks."

"No probs. Seems only fair," he started to answer, before he cleared his throat. "Can you tell me how you got here? Do you remember any strange flashing lights on the console or anything else equally strange? Maybe the ride was rougher than usual?"

She started to shake her head before she raised her eyebrows. "Oh… Shit."

"What?" he asked. "What is it, what's wrong?"

She raised her eyebrows, looking over at him.

There was, again, something that had happened before she'd utilized the full potential of her powers. Maybe it meant that she'd always just been too low on energy to do things, she didn't know, but what she did know was that she'd accidentally done it now. When she'd been standing on the plaza after Pinstripes had kicked her off the Tardis, Ryan had interrupted her in the middle of her trying to undo it without any energy. She'd never be able to explain why that sometimes made things happen, not purposefully doing it but just by having a stray thought and then seeing it come to pass sometime later.

But why now? These things were usually more immediate, and it had been three months.

No, but of course, because she hadn't been up to full power and trying to undo something that had had as many ripples as that was sort of unrealistic in her state. Maybe it would've been easier if she hadn't've already met someone so far into the Doctor's future, but that established that there was a future to be had.

A future in a different timeline, she realized with horror. Because that's all that she had actually done. Create a different timeline.

"Anna, anything that you can remember, anything at all that might be useful in getting you two back to the correct timeline-"

She shook her head. "You don't-"

Oh, holy goodness, _no_.

The thought she'd had was to undo it. What if she _had_ undone it, completely?

A new memory filtered in, one of what 13 had said. Instead of undoing it, she might just appear in a different timeline and he'd spend the rest of his life wondering where she'd ended up. Maybe 13's words had influenced how this had played out, and that's what had _actually_ created the separate timeline.

But, it didn't matter, did it? The whole _point_ of this _entire_ exercise was that the Doctor wouldn't have to feel that pain and loss. But, here was another timeline version of himself, obviously feeling that pain so deeply that it had immediately angered him that someone was trying to take advantage of that for their own wellbeing.

"I'm sorry," she said, looking up at him. She was met with surprise and a vague suspicion, and she pursed her lips before she continued. "I was trying to- Oh, hold on, how much do you actually know?" she asked, realizing that he'd never actually said anything about his actions to end the Time War being erased.

In answer to her question, he shrugged, turning back to the center computer column. She knew that he wasn't actually checking anything. This was his way of gaining information without being overt about it. "As far as I know, he told me everything. Well, except for how you got here, and for how you did the things he claims you've done, for that matter." He frowned, looking back at her. "How did you get rid of all the daleks and put up protective barriers?"

She shrugged, shaking her head as she looked down at her lap. "Sort answer is that I can do anything and everything," she told him, bitterly. "It was easy to make it so that they simply existed in an alternate dimension, and then put up protective barriers so that Gallifrey would be protected from any other attacks-"

"You didn't kill them?"

She furrowed her brow, shaking her head as she looked up at him. "Why would I?" she asked him. "I don't have any right to decide who lives and who dies, any more than you do."

Surprise flitted through his eyes at that before he frowned. "You said you put them in an alternate dimension, though. I mean, I'm assuming there were other _people-_ "

"No, no," she said. "I created it, from scratch."

His eyebrows shot up in surprise. For a moment, he didn't look like he knew what to say. He finally landed on smiling, almost placatingly, before he held up his hands. "Let me get this straight," he said. " _You're_ telling me that you _created_ an alternate dimension _from scratch_ so that you could populate it with the daleks from the Time War?"

"Pretty much, yes."

"... How?" he asked.

She rolled her eyes.

An idea came to her in that instant, one that every single piece of her rebelled against but that she ignored. She couldn't save _his_ Gallifrey. To do so would mean that she'd have to travel back to the same moment she'd done so in the other timeline. But, if she couldn't do that, then at the very least, she could make it so that he was less alone.

She smiled slightly. "Same way I can do this."

"Do-"

"What's this? What's this? Look at this, this is very strange! I appear to be in the now! How strange! How did this happen?"

"… what."

The Doctor's word was just a whisper as he rapidly paled, looking at the woman who had just appeared in the medbay.

"Oh, that is marvelous, that is just marvelous, much better than a _humanoid_ body, I have no idea how you get around in those things."

"Sexy?" the Doctor all but squeaked.

'Sexy', for her part, turned to look at him, a smile on his face.

"Yes, hello Doctor! It's me, Sexy! What have you done?"

He pointed to himself, raising his eyebrows, before he shook his head. "No- no, I think-I think that was, that was her, actually." He pointed to Anna, sitting on the bed. "Good question, great question, what did you do?"

He pulled out his sonic, starting to scan… _Sexy_ , did she really have to call her that? But... Sexy paid him no mind, instead, staring at Anna with an awe induced expression.

It was a bit like the expression the Doctor had had on Demon's Run, after River had showed him the cradle and he realized who she was.

"Hello," she said, after a moment, her eyes dazzled as she smiled at her. She appeared to be fighting back tears.

"… Hi?" Anna asked, increasingly confused.

"Do you've any idea who this is?" she asked, turning back to look at the Doctor.

"Not a clue, starting to get a picture, though," he said, "Considering that you're standing in front of me and appear to be my Tardis! Ha! Seriously, what did you do?"

"It doesn't matter! What does matter is what she _will_ do."

She felt her heart sinking in her chest, and she raised her eyebrows.

"Which is?" the Doctor asked.

"She's going to help you."

She raised her eyebrows even higher. "And how is _she_ going to do that?" she asked, sitting back on the bed.

"Yes, I'd quite like to know that as well," the Doctor interjected, though he was still joyful about the Tardis, "Is this permanent?" he asked, the joy on his face making her smile a little despite the circumstances. He was pointing back and forth between himself and the Tardis.

"You already know, I've seen it in your mind," the Tardis responded (Oh. Right. She could just call her the Tardis. She was almost a little embarrassed she'd called her Sexy in her mind. Not that there wasn't anything that _wasn't_ sexy about the Tardis. It just wasn't _her_ nickname for her).

"Seen what?" he asked, seeming to suddenly grasp the seriousness of the situation as he looked back and forth between the two of them. "Seriously, what's happening?"

She bit her lip, shaking her head. "You know that I can't. You've already experienced it, if I try to change what happened then-"

"Careful, he's more clever than you give him credit for. Yes, he's even cleverer than that," she told her, after she raised her eyebrows in surprise. "One wrong word and the whole thing blows up in your face. No, no, of course I wouldn't ask you to do that. I'm speaking about something else in your mind, the… timeline jumping trope, I believe it's called?"

She raised her eyebrows.

"I'm sorry, what?"

"Oh, don't look so surprised. You're the one who made it okay for me to be inside your head in the first place. Not sure why I'm one of the few exceptions, but I'm honored."

She smiled slightly. "Look a little further in my head you'll see why you are."

"Can one of you please explain what you're talking about? How is she going to help me? Well, besides by telling me if this is permanent or not and if this is damaging you in anyway, important that bit."

She raised her eyebrows before she shook her head. "I don't know what she's talking about, considering that I can't do what she's apparently saying she wants me to."

"Don't be so stupid, of course you can."

"Oi!" she said, affronted. "I'm not stupid, but fine, then, I'm saying I won't."

"Why not?" she asked.

"Because this isn't my timeline."

"This is the exact definition of your timeline. Accident or no, you did create it, and therefore, are responsible for what happens here."

She raised her eyebrows, smiling in a slightly indulgent way. "You're not serious."

"I am very serious," she told her. "This timeline wouldn't be here if you hadn't've created it-"

She leaned back further on the bed. "Technically speaking, I wasn't the one who created it, technically, it already existed as potential energy somewhere out there in the wide universe. The fact that I solidified it, even accidentally, doesn't make it my responsibility. It just makes it something that I happened to nudge along. Besides which, that's a nice bit of hypocrisy there, isn't it? Does that make you responsible for anytime that you create a new version of events by allowing him to run about and change things willy nilly?"

"Oi," he objected, but he seemed to have given up on trying to understand what it was that they were talking about.

"My point still stands," she said. "If you're expecting me to be here when you've said that I've created something, then technically, you need to head back to every point that he ever saved someone to monitor the changes cause they're your responsibility."

"Technically, they'd be my responsibility, cause I'm the one that changed them," he pointed out.

She looked over at him with the same look that she was throwing the Tardis. "And you never would've been able to if it hadn't've been for the fact that she'd landed you at the exact right time in the exact right place."

"Give me a _little_ credit, I'm sure I'd still be messing about where I don't belong, even if I didn't have this- No, I can't even say it, that's too horrible, my point being I do bare _some_ of the responsibility."

She raised her eyebrows, smiling congenially. "Then do you agree with her that it's my responsibility to stick around and help because I accidentally- very _technically,_ created this place?"

"Well, I'm not sure that I'm onboard with the whole 'you having created an alternate timeline,' but no, I do agree with you in that it's not your responsibility, and I'm not sure why _you_ are saying that it _is_ her responsibility, considering that she is right in that that would make any version of events that I-"

"We," the Tardis interjected, who'd yet to take her eyes off of Anna.

"Whatever, point still stands, I'm not responsible for any new timelines that might've cropped up, and neither is she." He frowned, searching the Tardis still staring intently at Anna. "Why do you say that she is, anyway?"

"Because she can help you and she's refusing to."

She raised her eyebrows, about to point out the hypocrisy-

Before she realized. This was her Thief, and he was in pain, and in the Tardis' mind, Anna could do something about that and simply wasn't. In other words, this was personal.

"I have done," she gently told her, leaning forward. "By giving him you, who can now converse with him at any point _without damage_ ," she pointed out, and she couldn't help the large smile that grew on her face at the look of absolute joy on his at the prospect that he might be able to talk to his Tardis all the time. "He's not alone, and you know what his future will be. He'll-"

"-be better with you in it," she pointed out. "Having someone like you in his life in whatever capacity that takes would be better, in the long run."

He frowned. "Hold on, are you suggesting that she stick around? Because she can't, she's not from this timeline, the damage-"

"Oh, do give me a _bit_ more credit than that," she told him. "This is _Anna_ we're talking about. She can do things like accidentally nudge potential timelines into actual existence, do you really think she can't change it so that she doesn't damage the timeline she's existing in?"

"Oh. Good point, that," he said, turning to look at her. "That also leaves the problem of her not actually wanting to be here, so I'm not sure how you're planning on making this happen, but I for one have no intention of keeping either of them here a second longer than they'd like to be here- woah."

He'd nearly made it to the doorway when it slammed shut in his face.

"Okay. Never done that before."

She was surprised when she could feel the minute amount of fear tracing through the air, and she raised her eyebrows, turning to look at the Tardis.

"He's right," she told her. "I'm not sticking around here. I've got my timeline-"

"You've got a timeline where you already helped him," the Tardis pointed out.

"Dear, let's be reasonable," the Doctor said, starting to her.

The Tardis shot him a look and he backed off, holding his hands up.

"I am being reasonable," she told him, looking back at Anna. "You've done what you were meant to do there. If you truly want to keep the timeline intact as you so appear to want to in your mind-"

She stood. "Well, guess those privileges are revoked," she told her, fuming.

"If you continue to travel with that him, he won't meet who he would've done otherwise."

She smiled slightly. "You and I both know that's not entirely true. Tell me, seriously, that you wouldn't still pick up the people he's meant to be with."

"The people he's meant to be with and the _same_ people aren't the same thing."

She raised her eyebrows. "Let me rephrase that then, the people that he's meant to be with after you've already seen how things are supposed to be in my head."

"You and I both know it's not that simple," she told her. "But, you coming here, being with this him, would not only ensure that that timeline continues on for that him as you've seen it come to pass, the way that you want it to. I know that you didn't like disrupting his personal timeline to do what you did. Coming here to travel with this him would make sure you wouldn't disrupt it anymore than you already have."

She shook her head. Perhaps this would've worked before, this guilt trip, but it certainly wasn't working now.

"Look, I get you wanting to help your Thief, I understand-"

"Good, then you agree."

"I do _not_ ," she told her, immediately, actually a little afraid that she was about to attempt to send her back and putting safeguards in place. "What I understand is that he's _The Doctor_ , and that makes you want to protect him more than anything in this entire universe from pain that he doesn't have to feel. I understand that. I get it, and the proof of that is in the proverbial pudding."

"So you'll help us, then."

" _No_ ," she reiterated. "Because I've got another him to get back to, a whole other timeline, and I won't break his hearts like that. I won't."

"Did it ever occur to you that maybe his hearts wouldn't break as thoroughly as you appear to think they would? That maybe he'd be just fine without you?"

She raised her eyebrows before throwing her arms out. "Then what are we talking about here?"

"You've mended the worst mistake of his life in one timeline," she told her. "Now, while that might not be possible here, it is possible for you to make it so that he's not alone." She searched her. "You can mend that hurt, however long it takes. And don't you want that?"

"Of course I do," she told her. "But, it's also why I brought you to life in the first place, so that he could have someone, so that he wouldn't be alone."

"It's not the same. I still wouldn't be able to exist outside of my shell, but you? You could-"

"Listen, I'm sorry-"

"Isn't anybody going to ask me what I want?"

The Tardis finally looked back at him, and so did she.

"While I appreciate what it is that you're trying to do-"

"You want this," the Tardis told him. "I promise you, you do."

He was smiling congenially. "While it's nice that you seem to think you know so intricately what I desire, I've no desire to hold Anna here against her will. I say that the two of them-"

"If you knew her, you would know that you wanted this," the Tardis said, and she turned back to Anna. "You could create that, a him in that condition who knows you and who wants you around. He could advocate for himself better than I ever could."

She raised her eyebrows before she shook her head.

"And that would be great, except there's still the small matter of-"

"You've helped that Thief, now help this one. It would be so easy. You could even head back to that one at the end of it, if you'd like. It would be like no time at all had passed for him."

She made a good point, though. She could head back to the other one after she'd helped this one in whatever capacity that took.

For years, that had been the plan, to travel his timeline out of order. She would've had to, because the universe needed people saved in a very specific order to keep on spinning the way it was meant to. She would've attached herself to his timeline so that she could save as many people as possible, all while making sure that he wasn't alone. It was the only thing she'd been able to suss out that she could do to help him.

When she realized that she _could_ prevent him from ending the Time War and doing it herself, she realized that wasn't true anymore. For whatever reason, be it the ripples to time or her own actions, she no longer had to travel his timeline out of order in order to save the people she'd wanted to save, or to travel with him in general.

But now, she had a Doctor who needed her help, who she could help, who all she'd wanted to do was help.

But where did she draw the line, then? Was she about to travel to every timeline that the Doctor had ever suffered that tragic fate and fix that, too? Was that who she was? The Doctor's doctor?

If she kept doing that, traveling to all the Doctor's timelines, she would eventually forget that anything but his story existed. She didn't have that luxury.

There was more in the multiverse to save than just the Doctor.

"I'm so sorry," she told her, grabbing her hands. "Really, truly, I am. But, you and I both know that this isn't the answer, and that things do eventually work out for the better." She smiled. "It was nice to meet you, the both of you, but I've-"

She was surprised by the cold eyes she was met with. "So that's your final answer, then?" she asked.

She licked her lips, raising her eyebrows. "Yes," she said, after a moment.

She took her hands out of Anna's. "Right, then," she said. "Sorry about this."

"About wh-"

She descended to darkness, then.

#####

The Doctor immediately rushed to Anna, catching her in his arms before he lowered her to the ground, checking to see that she'd merely been forced to unconsciousness.

"What did you do?" he asked, looking up at the Tardis.

He raised his eyebrows, realizing that the image was flickering.

"What's happening?"

"Well, it's taking quite a bit of power on my end to keep her under like this. At least, until you can devise a means of sending her around your timeline- oh dear," she said, clutching at her abdomen.

The Tardis shivered.

Not the woman in front of him, the mechanical structure around them. He raised his eyebrows, watching as she looked down on him.

"You've to sedate her," she said. "Or I'll drain all my power supply keeping her under."

"Alternatively," he replied, quietly. "You could just let her wake up and free them, both of them, because I'm sure you've hidden the other me somewhere that she can't find him."

"I'll do it."

He felt his hearts sink as he realized that the Tardis was actually threatening him in order to get him to help her keep a woman hostage.

"I'll drain my power supply so that she doesn't wake up, I promise you, I will."

He shook his head, standing. "What for? If she's as powerful as both of you are claiming-"

"More so."

"Then even if I sedate her, even if you do successfully keep her here, she'll eventually escape."

She shook her head, the image once again flickering. "But it'll be too late by then," she told him. "Because she'll be incorporated into events and therefore she'll have to continue existing here. By the time she figures out a way to escape, she won't want to."

He smiled sadly. "Do you hear yourself? You're talking about keeping a woman here against her will for the sake of my happiness." Even if he didn't understand the means, he understood the end result. "Is that something that you think I want, in any realm of possibility?"

"If the you that has her in your life were here, I can guarantee that he would be helping me keep her here."

"I can guarantee that he wouldn't."

The Tardis started to get desperate, then.

"You will love that girl to the ends of the universe and back," the Tardis told him, and surprise welled up in his hearts as he glanced at her. "She will be exactly what you need to fill that hole inside of your chest that you always ignore because you think you deserve it, but you _don't_ , and she can help to show you that."

He gently took the Tardis' hands in his, searching her eyes as he spoke just as gently. "If that is true, do you really think that I want the basis of the relationship with the love of my lives to be _this_? To have our epic love story start with my forcing her to be in a timeline against her will? If she really is spectacular as all that, do you really think I want my relationship with someone as amazing as that to be tarnished by _this?_ "

She opened her mouth to speak.

A shudder ran through the Tardis, the floor moving and the lights flickering. He felt urgency fill his hearts. His Tardis was dying and he needed her to see a bit of reason.

"Doctor, I need you to trust me for ten minutes."

He frowned, wondering why the words sounded so familiar.

 _Believe me for twenty minutes_.

It's what he'd said to Amy when the world had literally been ending.

The Tardis was reflecting back those words at him because she'd seen in their minds what an important moment it had been for both of them.

She hadn't even asked for twenty minutes. She'd just asked him for ten. He raised his eyebrows, glancing between her and the prone Anna, who admittedly was stirring.

His oldest friend was dying and she was asking him to trust her.

As much as his hearts cried out that this was wrong, he nodded, moving to the central column and asking for a strong sedative, unsure why the Tardis thought a simple medicinal sedative would work if her keeping Anna out like this wasn't.

Maybe it would mean that she wouldn't stay down, and some part of him hoped for that because otherwise, the thought of what was about to occur was too horrible to think about.

The injector popped out and he quickly moved to Anna. The Tardis was in an immeasurable amount of pain and right now, he wasn't sure that he wouldn't have done this, if only to keep her from dying.

Anna stirred, groaning.

"Doctor?" she asked, blearily, before she glanced behind him. She started to barely shake her head before her eyes caught the injector in his hands. She looked up at him and he nodded, smiling.

"It's okay," he told her, quietly, gently cupping her cheek in his hand. He nodded once more when she started to shake her head. "Nobody here will hurt you, cross my hearts. You're safe. I promise you, you're safe."

He would keep that promise because he refused to allow his Tardis to actually hurt her. If she actually was everything that the Tardis claimed, then he wouldn't let anybody hurt her.

"Don't," she whispered, before she groaned. "Doctor, you can't."

"It's just a sedative, it'll just help you to sleep, it's all right," he told her, quietly, as he pushed it against her forearm with little resistance from her.

"Please," she begged him, and it broke his hearts.

"I'm sorry," he said and meant with every part of himself, before he injected her with it.

He was surprised when liquid slid down her arm. He quickly took the injector away, wiping the liquid away with her shirt. There was no injection site, and when he touched his pinkie to her arm and tasted said pinkie, he was surprised to find that it was the sedative he'd just tried to inject her with.

The Tardis shuddered again, only this time, bits of ceiling were starting to come off. He shielded Anna before he turned back to his Tardis.

"You have to stop this," he ordered her. "You're dying, and this isn't worth your life."

She smiled sadly. "It's worth that and more."

He shook his head, about to shout at her to stop, when she perked up for some unknown reason.

"Besides, I've just had an idea."

The room shook as the dematerialization circuit started, and panic fled through him as he gripped the center column.

"What, drain yourself faster?!" he asked.

They landed with a shudder, and he let out a shout as the center column broke off from the ceiling, falling to the ground.

It was that instant. One second, the lights were off, the next, they were on, everything put back exactly the way it should've been.

"Well, now, that was quite the bit of drama," she said, and he raised his eyebrows, looking over to see that Anna was now laying on a bed, completely passed out. He rushed over to her, trying to see if he could at all rouse her, but she was thoroughly out.

"What did you do?" he asked the Tardis.

"Drove myself to Cardiff." He felt his hearts settle in relief. "Unlimited power supply, which is terribly useful to me in this moment, considering I'm keeping her down until we come up with a solution to make her jump around your timeline."

The ten minutes weren't up, so he had to keep playing along. He turned back to look at his Tardis.

"What's that mean, then?" he asked, crossing his legs but keeping one of Anna's hands in his.

"It's like… Oh, what do you call her, the one with big hair- River! It's like with Dr. River Song. She'd travel your timeline out of order, except instead of having a life outside of traveling with you, she'd be exclusively traveling your timeline. That aside, she'd have no control over when she landed or when she took off. So, essentially, she'd be a perpetual traveler in your life, always coming and going, but always, always there for you, past, present, and future."

His brows furrowed. "You're talking about rewriting my entire life."

"More than that, rewriting it for the better," she corrected him.

He raised his eyebrows, smiling humorlessly. "Do you really think this is something that I'd want? To condemn someone to a life of always living their life out of order, never having continuity or consistent relationships- I mean, the spoilers _alone_ would be enough to drive anybody mad, and you're asking me to do this to a person that I'm supposed to be madly in love with?"

"If the only other choice is to not have her in your life at all? Yes," she answered him.

He smiled, but it was humorless, anger just around the edges as he clapped his hands together before he wrung them out. "Right, yes, how are we doing this, then, hm?" he asked. "How are we creating my little _timeline prisoner_? Maybe- but that's the other thing, I wouldn't even know where to start!" he shouted at the Tardis before he reigned himself in, remembering who (and what) it was that he was speaking to. He sighed, rubbing a hand down his face. "Look," he said. "The intentions are noble, really, they are, but I am fine. Really, I am. There's no need for you to trap this girl into a life that she doesn't even want-"

"She wants to help you," she interrupted him.

"And she has," he said, imploringly. He walked up to her and cupped her cheeks in his hands. "By giving me _you_. That's more than I ever thought that I would get. I mean, can you _imagine_? The conversations _alone_ will be marvelous."

Amidst the panic and the pain, he was starting to get excited once more about the prospect that he and the Tardis could chat properly, like he'd always wanted them to.

Well, once she got her marbles back, anyway and stopped insisting that she have him help her trap a person to his timeline in what was, quite frankly, the cruelest way imaginable.

"My Thief," she said, quietly, but before he could respond, she continued. "You said that you would trust me for the next ten minutes. I've still got seven of those ten minutes. Help me. Please."

He felt his hearts fall in his chest once more, and he searched her eyes, searching for any sign that she was hesitant about doing this. When he found none, he nodded.

"Okay," he said. "I'll help you."

She frowned. "No you aren't," she said, and she watched as he turned away from her, going to the center column to program the medical dispenser to give him adrenaline. "You're trying to wake her up."

"Thought a bit of adrenaline might help push her out of whatever state you've pushed her in."

"That's not helping me, that's helping her."

"There shouldn't be a difference," he told her without looking at her, still inputting commands into the computer. "You should be helping her to get back to where she belongs, helping both of them, and instead, you're trying to trap her in a life she doesn't want." He looked over at her. "I am helping you. I'm helping you to not become something that you shouldn't want to be." He looked at her imploringly. "Is that what you want?" he asked her. "To turn into someone who forces people into a life that they don't want?"

She crossed her arms, raised an eyebrow, and spoke. "Sometimes there are no good choices," she said. "But you still have to choose."

Desperation filled his hearts. "Don't do this, please," he told her. "Don't make me choose between you and her. Because every fiber of my being is telling me to choose you, but I know, in my heart of hearts, that that would be wrong." He shook his head. "Don't make me an accomplice to this. Please. If not for my sake, then for yours."

"Doctor," she said, and she crept over to him before she placed her hands on his face. "You said that you would trust me. So _trust me_. _Please_."

He wasn't lying when he said that every fiber of his being was telling him to choose the Tardis over a woman he barely knew. Every part of him was telling him that if the Tardis was asking for his help, then he _had_ to comply. She'd always done so much for him and never asked for anything in return. What was the harm in helping her with this?

There was some small part of him that was telling him that this was out of even his realm of possibility, and a different part of him hoped that it was.

That didn't stop him from asking the question, "What do you need me to do?"

Her eyes lit up, and he felt a possible future being solidified.

The only thing he could do was hope he'd made the right choice.


	14. And Time

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter title based on, "War and Peace."  
> So, here it is, part II of "War and Time"! Just a heads up, when I do angst, I do ANGST. There's also a bit more cursing than normal, but still within guidelines for the rating.  
> I still don't own Doctor Who.

When Anna awoke, she was on the ground.

She wasn't sure that that was a good thing, but it didn't necessarily have to be a bad thing. Nobody was attacking her and a quick check of her body showed that there was no soreness. She gingerly sat up, doing a visual inspection of her body to find that there was no injury. Maybe waking up on the ground didn't have to be a bad thing-

"The Doctor!"

But which Doctor was she referring to? The one who'd suffered because they were stuck in the wrong timeline? Or the one who she clearly remembered trying to sedate her, before failing? But then, how had she ended up here? Why was she sitting on the ground?

Her eyes landed on the bracelet on her left wrist and she stopped, staring at it.

She frowned, her entire brain completely occupied with it. It was simple, sleek in design, almost futuristic looking, like something somebody who was designing the clothes of a movie set in the future would create. She went to grab it, intent on turning it over or taking it off.

She could do neither.

Her eyebrows shot up and she shot into a standing position in the same motion. She couldn't take it off, because it was basically a hologram. A really, really convincing hologram. The kind that could make the Doctor look like a solid person on Bad Wolf Bay.

_The Doctor._

"What did you do?"

The words fell unbidden from her lips. She knew what the bracelet was. It was the magical object that would help her travel around the Doctor's timeline, because he'd done it. He'd actually taken away her choice, and now?

"Anna!"

Her heart leapt in her chest at the thought that it was the correct Doctor. She whirled around to see that he was running towards her.

But, it wasn't the correct timeline version of the Doctor. For one, there was too much joy on his face for it to be him. For two, Donna Noble was trailing behind him as he ran over to her, completely and utterly excited at the prospect that Anna had appeared.

Well, _that_ little bubble of joy was about to be burst with full force.

The anger came back rushing full force, freezing her full stop and for a moment, she stood there, shaking and unable to speak because the anger was actually choking her. The Doctor couldn't have noticed this because he stopped in front of her, smiling a huge smile.

"Look, Donna, it's Anna," he said, as he glanced between her and the redhead who had just caught up with him.

"Yes, I can see that, Spaceman, I have got eyes," she told him. The Doctor paid no mind to that, still smiling away like it was Christmas morning, and somehow, it was Donna that first noticed her anger. "What's wrong?"

"What? Why would anything be wrong?"

She finally got back her ability to speak, and she raised her eyebrows, scouring him. It had never made sense to her, the phrase, 'seeing red', but right now, she could literally see red around the edges of her vision.

It took _literally_ all of her self-control to speak.

"I want you to know that, right now, if I were a person who thought physical violence was _ever_ okay, I would be slapping you. _So hard_ right now."

Donna surprised both of them when she took a step so that she had better reach and slapped the Doctor across the face. Hard.

"What the _hell_ was that for?"

"I haven't got that problem," Donna said, and she stepped off to the side, looking to the Doctor. "Do you see her? She is _fuming_ , and I've never seen her look like that." At the mention of 'never having seen her look like that,' the surprise from Donna's slap (which had done almost nothing to dampen the rage) completely vanished as she looked at the Doctor. "Go on, tell us what he did."

The Doctor was holding his cheek, looking at Anna, confused and hurt. "Anna?"

But she _didn't care_. For the first time in her _life_ , she didn't _care_ that somebody else was hurt.

"Of _all_ the _stupid, selfish, arrogant, motherfu_ \- No, no, I do not even have a _word_ to describe how-how-how- how the _fu_ \- you- you- No. No. No, just, just, _NO_!" she shouted at him. She started to shout at him full tilt. " _You had absolutely no freaking right to do what you did and I'll tell you something else, if you thought for a_ single second _that it would_ work _that I would actually be_ forced _to stick around to force to be_ trapped _in this then you are just a motherfu- YOU. ARE. AN. IDIOT_!" she let out a shout of rage before she turned away, her hands shaking. She was fully seeing red. "Screw this," she hissed, and she focused on teleporting to the future Doctor.

A sharp and tight pain erupted over her left wrist and she cried out, collapsing to the ground below. When she came back, she saw that she was gripping her left arm. The area surrounding the bracelet literally looked like cracked pavement, except it was red instead of grey. She let out a noise of pain before she saw him kneeling down in front of her.

"Anna, please, whatever you're cross with me for, don't fight the bracelet just to get away from me. Please. I'll-I'll take Donna and we'll fly away so you don't have to see us, but please, don't hurt yourself because you're cross with me."

She barely frowned before she remembered that she already knew what 'fighting the bracelet' meant. It was the idea that the bracelet would prevent her from traveling to somewhere she'd already been, to avoid any paradoxes or reappearances. She'd planned something like that when she'd originally been planning to travel around his timeline out of order and now, here it was, live and in full color.

Either she'd never been this cross in her life or she'd just never let herself feel this cross before. Either way, she barely remembered hearing herself uttering the words, "Oh, I am going to _kill you_ ," before she suddenly found herself on top of the Doctor, his tie wrapped around her hand while the other was drawn back to hit him as _hard_ as she could.

She hated him even more in that moment because he didn't even fight it. There was a look in his eyes that she recognized well. One that said he fully deserved this and he would let her keep hitting him until she was content to not.

It was the distraction that let a thought filter in.

How was the bracelet powered?

It took a lot of energy to shuttle one person from one part of a timeline to the next, but how, exactly, did the bracelet manage to do that (as well as having the power to be attached in the first place)?

More importantly, why _had_ 'fighting the bracelet' become a thing?

She was shocked when she realized why a moment later, and she shot back and off the Doctor.

He'd connected the power source to her powers. That was the only way to explain how the bracelet was powered. It was two fold, too, because it meant that the majority of her energy was already being used to power the bracelet, so she couldn't just user her own energy to flounce away without dangerously draining herself.

She just _stared_ at the Doctor, who was sat up and readjusting his tie. He made no move to get away from her but instead, sat across from her, watching to see what she would do. He would let her pummel him into the ground because he thought that if it was Anna then he probably deserved it.

She _wanted_ to scream at him. She _wanted_ to pummel him into the very _ground_ he sat so passively upon. How _dare_ he take away her choice like that, like he had any right?

It didn't matter that the Tardis had advocated so heartily for it. He would've had to have been the one to do the actual taking.

Well. He _thought_ he'd taken her choice from her. He had no idea that she wasn't bound by the physical laws like the rest of the universe. It meant she could use her little trick to grab her Doctor, who had no doubt been placed in stasis until she was 'finished' traveling around this timeline, and head back to the other timeline. Time would be rewritten, and that was that.

She just barely held herself back from running off at the whisper of a thought that she was still a being of power, and that came with a lot of responsibility. It meant that she had to at least give this Doctor a chance to see the error of his ways and admit that he was wrong for doing this to her before she went on her way. It would give him a chance to learn from his mistakes, maybe help him to grow as a person, and promise himself that he wouldn't do this to anybody else (though the chances of him repeating this mistake were highly unlikely).

She stood up, still shaking with anger. "Your future self has ten minutes to get himself back here, or I swear, I won't even give you a chance to apologize, I'll just leave you behind and I won't look back."

She knew he caught the implication of what she was saying by the look of utter confusion and heartbreak and _terror_ in his eyes. Even if his future self got here in time, she intended to completely leave him behind and never look back.

Before he could even open his mouth to say something (probably to plead with her to reconsider), Donna spoke.

"Anna, sweetheart, whatever he's done to make you this furious, he obviously deserves your anger, but won't it be a bit hard leaving him behind if you're… you know... stuck to his timeline, or whatever?"

She grit her teeth, but no matter how much she tried to tell herself not to say anything, she spoke.

"You had _no right_ to do this. I made myself _very clear_ and you just _deciding_ to go ahead with it and do it anyway is not only _wrong_ , it's a _perversion_ of your name."

Shock ran through his eyes for a different reason, as well as the hurt that wouldn't be hidden, no matter how much he tried to tuck it away. But, he didn't tell her to stop. He didn't even try to defend himself.

"Anna-" Donna said, quietly.

"Never cruel, never cowardly, that's the promise, and today?" she shook her head, disgusted. "Who the hell _were_ you today?"

He opened and closed his mouth before he shook his head, clearing his throat. "I'm sorry," he said.

She shook her head, anger curling her lip. "You think sorry is good enough here? At all? Even a _little_?"

"No," he told her, and she barely paused at that. His eyebrows were raised and he said it with such sincerity that she had no choice but to believe him. "But, it's the only thing that I can say until my sorry excuse for a future self gets here to explain himself."

There was a bitterness in his tone that surprised her.

"In all my time traveling with you, we've seen some things. Horrible things. And I've never seen you as cross as you am right now. So, whatever it is that I have done to make you so horribly angry, to make you want to physically hurt me, it must've been something so completely awful that I can't imagine how I'll ever begin to make up for it. And I want to," he reassured her, and her hackles started to raise at that. "Every inch of me wants to show you how very sorry I am until you believe it." He shook his head, taking a step back. He looked down briefly before his eyes found hers once more. "But I won't, because I know that you won't believe it until it comes from the me that hurt you like this, and Anna, I am so sorry for that. I'm just- I'm sorry. I am so sorry."

She looked to the ground, shaking her head. "Thought you weren't going to apologize," she muttered, angrily.

He cleared his throat. "Yeah, it sort of just… came out," he told her, and she looked over to see that his hands were in his pockets. He was looking off in the distance.

She finally took note of her surroundings, realizing that they were on a wooden pier leading to a lake. They were surrounded by forest on all sides, with a lake house off in the distance. It was basically the generic setting for a horror movie, and she thought that it fit perfectly. This was a horror movie. The Doctor, of all people, doing something like this? He'd done some pretty awful things, and she supposed, if it were in the name of not being alone?

 _No_ , she told herself. She wouldn't justify this. Not this. _Not_ _ever_.

"I don't understand, though. How's his future self gonna know that he needs to come here?"

She crossed her arms tightly over her chest, turning away from him. Let the Doctor take this one.

He cleared his throat.

"Because I'll remember this moment right here and I'll know to come back here."

"I still don't understand."

She heaved out a sigh through her nose before she spoke.

"His future self and him are the same person. They share the same memories. And, because I'm acting in a way that I never have before, he'll do the equivalent of ear marking the memory so that he knows to come back to this moment when the future version of himself catches up to this moment, which he will in very short order." She checked the time and she barely glanced back at him. "Eight minutes."

"I'll be here," he told her.

She shook her head. "You know, I almost feel bad for you, in a weird way. You doing this to yourself. Time'll get rewritten, and you'll have to suffer with the memory of a potential timeline that never was. And that's entirely on you." She shook her head, staring out at the lake. "I said no. I'm not sure which part of that made you think that doing this was okay."

"Doing what-"

"Donna, she can't."

"She's the one talking about it," Donna said, sounding annoyed that she'd been corrected. Anna nodded.

"No, she's right," she told him. "I'm talking about it because you won't remember, because it doesn't matter because I'll never have traveled around your timeline in the first place."

She felt that same fear from before flicker like a candle flame. She shook her head, turning to look at him.

["What… does that mean?" Donna asked her, and she saw her glancing back and forth between her and the Doctor, who was looking at her with that same trace amount of fear in his eyes, though it was overrun by no small amount of self-loathing.

"It means, Donna, that I was never supposed to be here in the first place."

His eyebrows raised at that, though there was a misery that couldn't be contained.

"Because of your 'television show'?" he asked her.

That anger boiled up in her again.

"You do not get to speak. You do not get to do _anything_!" she shouted at him. "I'm not even _from_ this freaking timeline and when the chance arose, when the Tardis suggested that you _trap me_ to your timeline, you were more than _willing_. You just-you just _did it_. You just did it without any regard to anybody but yourself, because-"

Because he'd lost anybody he'd ever cared about.

She snarled, turning away from him, before she turned back to look at him.

"I'm sorry for the losses that you have suffered," she told him, quietly, even as he looked more confused and in denial than she'd ever seen him look. "But that does not excuse trapping someone to your timeline. It just. Doesn't."

"You're wrong."

Her eyes widened but she didn't get a chance to do anything before he spoke.

"I would never do that to you, trapping you to my timeline, trapping you into this life, I would never do that to you-"

"Oh, why, because you _love me_?"

"Yes!" he shouted at her, and he took three steps towards her before he managed to restrain himself. "Yes, I do, I love you-"

"You don't _control_ the people that you _love_!" she shouted at him. "Besides, you weren't there, you don't-"

"So explain it to me," he said, and she didn't realize how close he'd gotten until she actually had to look up at him. "Explain to me, in exact detail, what happened, because I refuse to believe that I could be the horrible monster that did this to you." He shook his head. "I wouldn't. I just, I wouldn't."

He looked so dichotomously sure and desperate, all in the same stroke, and she shook her head.

"I don't have to explain. _Anything_. To you. You _did this to me_ -"

"Did you see me- did you _actually_ see me _physically_ putting the bracelet on you?"

She opened her mouth, before she shut it, her eyebrows raising. In that moment, the anger was merely paused at the realization that she hadn't.

"No," she said, and it was in that moment that she started to run through what had happened, some part of her speaking out loud for his benefit. "I came from a different timeline with a different you, and some stuff happened before you believed that I was from a different timeline. I brought the Tardis to life- don't ask, basically, she was able to speak and things, and she decided in all her infinite wisdom," though it was with no anger that she spoke those words, "that I had helped that different timeline you, don't ask, so I should help this you because I had the power to and I was responsible for the timeline, _what did I just say_?" She ran her fingers through her hair, shaking her head. "I told the Tardis no, she asked me if that was my final answer, and when I answered that it was, she, like, sedated me or whatever.

"When I started to come to, your asshole self tried to sedate me too, which just seems like overkill, by the way. You told me that _it was fine, I was safe, you wouldn't let anybody hurt me,_ " she said, in a mocking voice. "And then I was out. The next thing I knew, I was here."

"Did I know who you were?"

"What?"

He surprised her when he grabbed either of her arms in a fit of desperation. " _Did I already know who you were_?"

She threw his arms off of her before she pointed at him, shaking with that anger once more.

"Touch me again and I will happily remove one of your kidneys." She felt surprise run through her and she looked down and away. "Seriously, don't touch me because I think I might actually do it."

"I'm sorry," he said.

She snarled. "I don't want you to be _sorry_ , I want your future self to be here."

"Anna, you said that you're from a different timeline-"

"I _am_ ," she told him, looking over at him.

"I'm not disputing that," he said, holding up his hands. There were a thousand emotions resting on his face, desperation, sadness, anger, but most of all, a fear for what he knew was about to happen next. "I'm just asking, you're from a different timeline, but you said that you had to convince me that you were from a different timeline. Was it because I'd already known who you were, because you'd already been traveling around my timeline?"

She raised her eyebrows before she furrowed her brows.

"Would that make this better, somehow?" she asked him. "Because you did it to keep time flowing as it should- let me rephrase that, do you think _I_ would be this pissed off at you if that were the case? Do you think that you would've had to've sedated me, if that were the case? Do you honestly believe that this is how things would be playing out if that were the case? I'm not a freaking child, I understand how time flows-"

"I never said that you were-"

" _You're an asshole_!" she shouted at him, that anger once again welling up again. "And you're controlling and you had _no right to do this to me_! You had absolutely no right, and I cannot believe-" she shook her head. "I cannot believe you. I just, I cannot believe you. I can't. I just, I can't." She started to walk away from him.

"Anna, where are you-"

She whirled around on him, practically roaring the words. " _AWAY. FROM. YOU_!"

Maybe it was her own words that activated it, because, in the next moment, she felt the telltale burning of the bracelet on her left wrist.

"Oh, no, don't you dare," she hissed at it. "Don't you dare!" she shouted.

The anger took her over again. The last thing she was really aware of was seeing red, and then just flashes of her running at the Doctor.

It was just motion, then. All around her, things were flying by her at a rate that she couldn't explain or fathom. When she finally landed, it was in a room with an orange glow. There were people in here, and when she glanced down, she saw the glass floor underneath her, becoming aware of the center column in the middle next.

When she looked up, she saw the bowtie wearing Doctor's face.

She paused for a moment, barely tilting her head.

It was just for a moment, after all. In the next one, she vaulted the three steps towards him and punched him as hard as she could across his stupid jaw.

It must've been superpowered because he fell down like a log, crumpling completely to the glass floor below. She didn't even give him a chance to recover, grabbing him by his collar before she landed three more succinct hits on him.

" _Anna_!"

She was surprised when she felt an arm being slotted across her throat, one pulling the arm that was punching the Doctor in the face behind her. She felt herself being pivoted down to the ground below and, in the next moment, she was pressed face first into the glass, being restrained.

She didn't try to hurt the person holding onto her. Or, rather, she didn't try to hurt the person holding onto her with her powers. She still struggled underneath them, hissing, "Get off of me, _get off of me_!"

"Not until you calm. Down. That's the deal. You calm down, and I will let you stand up, but not a moment before that. Am I being very clear?"

She squeezed her eyes shut before she let out a few calming breaths. Whoever they were, they were right, violence wasn't the answer.

"I'm good," she said, a few moments later.

"Sure?"

"Yeah, I'm sure."

"Okay. I'm helping you to stand now, okay?"

She nodded, and he did as he said he would, helping her to stand. She was surprised when it was Rory, but only mildly. He was a nurse. He dealt with violent patients. It was in the job description. Learning non-violent restraining techniques was just part of the job.

"Thanks," she said, as she dusted herself off.

"For… what?" he asked, looking uncertain, keeping himself between her and the Doctor.

"For not letting me pummel him. No matter how much I might _want to_ ," she spit.

"Rory, he's not waking up," Amy's panicked voice came from behind him, and he glanced back and forth between them, looking at Anna with no small amount of worry in his eyes. "He's bleeding- what the _hell_ did you do?" Amy asked, looking back at her with fury and fear in her eyes.

She felt guilt flooding through her. Physical violence was never the answer, and that aside, she was still an all-powerful being. She didn't get the luxury of outbursts because, usually, the consequences were so much worse.

"I can heal him," she said, quietly.

"Then do," Amy bit out, and she imagined him healed.

She felt that same sharp pain, but it was less severe than it had been. She whimpered, grabbing her left arm, but watched with no small amount of relief as he bounced up, the dried blood still on his face.

"Where did she-"

He spun around until his eyes landed on her, and it was with a strange amount of both anger and guilt that she looked upon him.

He stopped, staring at her, and she opened her mouth.

"Sorry," she spat at him, turning to look away.

"For what?" he asked.

She grit her teeth. "Physical violence is never the answer. It doesn't solve anything."

"Did it make you feel better?"

The guilt flared and she glanced up at him. "A little," she admitted.

"Well, then, I say it solved plenty. Shall we?"

"Shall we what- Oh, holy crap," she said, and she looked around, realizing for the first time that she was on the Tardis.

The Tardis that had suggested the idea in the first place, that had been so happy and eager and willing to trap her to his timeline to make him happy.

Right now, she was absolutely, bugger all terrified that something worse was about to happen.

"My future self showed up about two seconds after you got taken by the bracelet, to here, I'm presuming, considering the _impressive_ right hook-"

"Are either of you going to explain why Anna just attacked you like a wild animal?"

"Because I wholly deserved it," he answered her.

Anna bit her lip, shaking her head. "Stop it," she whispered.

"But what did he do?" Rory asked. "Because I don't think I've ever seen you get angry before, let alone that angry."

She snarled at the mention of someone never having seen her that angry once more, but she was too focused on what was happening. She was once again in the Tardis where she could be worse than trapped-

 _His future self_.

She felt herself pale further, despite the fact that she was trying to keep a calm demeanor. Any second now, he was going to trap her into a more permanent situation. Maybe he'd hurt her Doctor in order to get information about how to make that possible, she didn't know, but the Tardis had seemed pretty convinced that, were it a him that knew her-

And this him no doubt knew her, and had known her for years and years and years. The thought of losing her probably wasn't something that he could stand to think about. So, it had probably been easy for his future self to convince him to strategize so that Anna was a prisoner of a more permanent variety.

She didn't know what to do first, but her automatic instinct was to teleport away. She had a feeling that she shouldn't and she snarled before she took a step back, her heart pounding painfully in her chest.

Instead, she shook her head. "I'm not-" she had to clear her throat, but she snarled again when she backed up into the railing, another reminder that she was touching the Tardis which meant that she was _trapped_ on the Tardis. "I'm not doing this, I won't be your prisoner. I just won't. And if you and the Tardis are under some delusion that I'll fall into line because I have to, then you don't know me half as well as you think you do."

He looked up at her, agony behind his mask but reassurance and calm up front as he barely shook his head. "Anna, the Tardis won't hurt you-"

"The _Tardis_?" she shouted at him. "What about _you_?"

He held up his hands. "It's not what you think," he started.

She raised her eyebrows, shaking her head. "No, it never is, is it?"

"Doctor, what is she-"

"Amy, please, not now," he said, and she barely saw Rory drawing Amy back out of the corner of her eye. She was too focused on the Doctor, who admittedly hadn't moved from his spot, to care about that. "Remember what you said? That you were sedated for most of what had happened? So isn't there just the slightest possibility that it's _not_ what you think?"

She had to get out of here. She had to. She started to imagine that she and the Doctor were back where they needed to be-

Oh, holy goodness.

She'd lost her advantage, her surprise advantage. There were a few reasons why that was a bad thing. Obviously, there was a her out there that had decided to travel his timeline, because they'd all known who she was on sight. It meant that she'd more than likely told him how her powers worked. It meant that, now that he'd had a bit of time, he would've been able to devise a way to keep her Doctor from her, so that she'd _have_ to travel around his timeline.

"You hurt him, you so much as lay a finger on him, and I'll-"

But, she stopped.

She couldn't threaten him with anything, because she was already doing the worst possible thing she could to him.

Desperation replaced some of the fear as it unfolded through her. She moved to him and, despite the fact that he was unconsciously tensing in preparation for another blow, he didn't move. Instead, he allowed her to move to him, even allowing her to place her hands on his shoulders.

"I'm sorry," she told him, quietly. Even if it had been his own doing, no one deserved the pain of what he was about to endure.

It was for this reason, and this reason only that she allowed him to cup her face in his hands. He nodded. "Me too," he said, quietly.

She didn't see it coming. There was only a moment to realize that he was lining his hands up on her face where they needed to be, before a familiar darkness descended upon her once more.

#####

When she came to, she immediately backed up.

It was a good thing, too. The two Doctors were standing in front of her, both looking a different amount of guilty, even if it was the same kind.

"I'm sorry," the one who still had blood imprinted on his face spoke up. "From the way you were looking, I thought you might try to teleport away, I didn't want you to hurt yourself."

She barely shook her head, putting her hand back to steady herself.

She jumped in surprise when she was met with the feeling of something solid underneath cloth. When she looked back, she felt equal amounts of surprise, relief, and worry cascading through her.

"Doctor, hey, hey," she said, scrambling up to his face so that she could clasp his cheeks in her hands. He was out cold. "Doctor, can you hear me?" she asked, desperately.

She checked his pulse, which was normal, and he otherwise seemed unharmed.

Physically anyway. This was the Doctor, after all. There was no telling what he'd done in search of keeping her.

"What did you do?"

They were in an empty warehouse, situated underneath a row of windows that were high up on the brick wall behind her. Her words echoed around the empty space.

"Sedated him," the future Doctor said, the one that didn't have blood imprinted on his face. "Didn't want him to be in unnecessary pain, all things considered."

"Oh, like what, knowing that the woman that he loves is being forced to travel around _your_ timeline?" She snarled.

"I'm sorry-"

"Sorry isn't enough!" she shouted at him, standing. She shook her head, staring at him. "I mean, what _exactly_ did you think would happen when you-"

"It wasn't me."

"Then who the _fuck_ was it?"

"The Tardis."

She frowned, searching him, and he sighed.

"Let me explain.

#####

"That'll never work." Four more minutes. He just had to stall the Tardis for four more minutes, and then he could figure something out to disable this interface, whatever it was, so that Anna could get herself and the other Doctor home. "The amount of energy that it would take alone would be- you'd have to burn up a supernova, and it wouldn't be a small one, anytime you wanted her to jump to a different point in my timeline."

"Energy," the Tardis said, and he furrowed his brow.

"Yes, I just said, that, energy-"

"Oh, my Thief, you're a genius!" she shouted, before she ran up to him, placing her hands on his shoulders before she planted a quick kiss on his cheek. She nodded. "Thank you," she said, tears in her eyes, "you won't regret this."

Fear shuddered through his hearts and he shook his head. "Regret what-"

The Tardis interface disappeared.

Time shuddered and he collapsed to his knees. All around him, time was being rewritten.

He had a new set of memories in his head and a new ring on his left hand, and the horrifying guilt of someone who had betrayed the person that they loved the most in all the universe.

He could see it then, what the Tardis had done. Created a small barrier around her wrist that could contain her energy. The Tardis was telepathic and she used the same principle that she did when she accessed a mind to access Anna's energy, redirecting it so that her energy was focusing on powering the conduit that would allow her to jump through his timeline. Connecting her to his timeline had been laughably easy. She was a Tardis. Time was her plaything, and so it was easy to do the exact thing Anna'd asked her not to do, and trap her into his life.

As he managed to navigate through the new memories, he saw Anna, the amazing and kind and wonderful person that she was. The Tardis was right. He loved that woman to the ends of the universe and back.

But, the Tardis was wrong. If he had been there, the him who knew her, he never would've advocated for the suffering of the woman that he loved with all his hearts. How could anybody ever do this to someone that they loved?

He saw it, then. Anna forgiving him and forgiving the Tardis for everything that she'd done, and traveling with them, for all his lives.

He wept in earnest when he saw what was happening, how time was being rewritten. Anna, standing by a lakeside, resisting the urge to pummel him into the ground as she shouted that he had ten minutes to get to her before she left him behind for good.

He pulled himself together so quickly it made his head spin, scrambling up. There was no part of him that understood why she was giving him this chance, but there was no way he was wasting it. She blamed him and she rightfully should, because he'd been _weak_ and a massive _moron_ who'd given in to his oldest friends wishes, despite the fact that every iota of him knew that it was wrong to do so.

"I'm coming, I'm coming, hang on!" he shouted to no one in particular. He'd no idea where the Tardis interface had ended up but he had no interest in seeing her right now (even if some small part of him knew that he would end up forgiving her. She was his Tardis. How could he not?).

He was running as he exited the Tardis to find that she'd already disappeared.

#####

Back at the warehouse, the other Doctor had gotten back into his Tardis and flown away, even despite the fact that he remembered how much it had pained him to do so.

He didn't care about that. His full attention was on Anna as he finished explaining. "Anna, I am so sorry-"

He didn't understand the guilt or the horror on her face, the tears that were in her eyes. "For what?" she asked, searching him as she shook her head. "You didn't do anything wrong, the only thing that you did do was try to stall for time until you could figure something else out."

"I never should've offered my help, I should've found another way, this is my fault."

"It's _not_ ," she told him, shaking her head. "It's _not_ your fault. This is on the _Tardis_ for doing this." She shook her head, openly sobbing. "It's not _fair_."

"What's not?" he asked her, quietly, wanting nothing more than to run up to her and hold onto her, to comfort her. There was no part of him that felt like he deserved that.

She shook her head again. "This isn't your fault and it's still going to hurt you when I head back."

His hearts sank down through the floor. As much as he tried to conceal his disappointment, he couldn't, not entirely. There was some small part of him that had hoped beyond all reason that she might stick around, some small, minuscule, _extraordinarily_ selfish part of him that hoped he might get to keep the wonderful life he'd had with her.

She was right. It wasn't fair. But, if there was something that he'd learned over the millennia of traveling, it was that life was rarely ever fair on it's own. Fairness usually came from the actions of those who believed in a fair universe.

Right now, the universe was not fair, and he had no reason to expect Anna to make it so. He certainly wouldn't. It wasn't fair to her that the Tardis had put this on her to make this impossible choice. The only thing he could do was make it easier on her in the long run.

He walked up to her, gently grasping her hands in his in an attempt to comfort her.

"Listen to me," he told her, quietly, nodding. "I'll be fine. Time will get rewritten, and I won't even remember you. It'll be like this never even happened."

"I'm not a child," she told him through tears, and he was about to tell her that he in no way thought she was. She stopped him when she spoke. "I know how time works. I exit this timeline and time does get rewritten, but this timeline still _existed_. It means that you'll still be able to see it." She put a hand over her mouth. "And how can you not? It'll be like this bright shining beacon in your face of this life that you could've had where you weren't alone."

He could see it then, how she got calmer, her eyes searching the ground. Every part of his hearts started to sing because he knew it meant that she was making the decision to stick around.

Perhaps it was a testament to how much he loved her that he spoke. It definitely wasn't a testament to how selfless he was. What he'd done here had more than proven how selfish he really was.

"I know what you're thinking, and not because I'm reading your mind," he quickly interjected at the look on her face, remembering how Anna was in the early days about unwanted people in her mind. "I know what you're thinking because I know that look on your face. You're about to tell me that you'll stick around regardless, because you know how much pain this will bring me." He shook his head, cupping her face in his hands. "I'm telling you that I don't want that. The Tardis was wrong, Anna. If I had been there, this me, the one who'd traveled with you and knew who you were and what it would mean to me to not have you in my life, I still wouldn't have wanted you trapped in this life. I never would've chosen this for you, and I'm so sorry that it was.

"The only thing that I can change about this is telling you that what I want for you now is to take the other me. Travel back to your proper timeline." His hearts shattered into a million pieces, his ring dangling from a necklace that was currently hidden underneath his shirt nearly burning him, because this would be one of the most painful things he'd ever done. "Promise me that you will live," and here, his traitor chin started to wobble, tears forming in his eyes. "the most wonderful life. The life that you deserve, with the Doctor that you deserve. The one who isn't marred by the same darkness that I am. Promise me that you will let yourself be as happy as you deserve."

The first tear dropped and she brushed it away before she nodded, sobbing.

"I will," she told him. "I promise, I will. And- and I can do something for you, I can- I can figure out a way to make it so that you don't remember that this timeline existed, even in your time sense, and that way-"

" _Don't_ ," he told her, and his fierceness startled them both. "Because the Tardis was right about one thing. I'd rather have you in my life in some capacity than not at all, even if it is just in what you call my time sense. Because you are just that _brilliant_." He matched their foreheads. "My Anna."

"Doctor," she sobbed, and his hearts shattered completely at the fact that she hadn't called him hers. He pulled her into a hug, allowing himself a moment of weakness to hide his face in her shoulder.

He allowed himself another moment of weakness when he spoke. "I love you, and I always will," he promised her. "And I will never, ever forget you."

"Nor me," she said, and he squeezed her tightly.

In the next second, she had disappeared from his grip.

Time was a maelstrom of events, swirling around him. He fell to his knees, clutching at his chest. Something was happening, something was shifting from a solidified future to a had been but now would never be, and he scrabbled for it desperately, unsure of what it was but knowing that it was important and not something he ever wanted to forget.

He saw her then. Anna.

Part of him wished that he'd never reached for it, because it solidified in his aching mind. Anna Monroe. The woman he'd loved with all of his hearts. The woman he'd lost because he'd told her to save herself, and she had. The woman he would never see again, for as long as he lived.

He didn't know how long he sat on the concrete floor, desolate and heartsbroken. Enough time could've passed for him to become just another part of the abandoned building, for he too was now just another abandoned thing to be forgotten in the annals of history.

But never by her.

He had to believe that, or he would've collapsed and fallen apart so completely that he would've never been whole again.

Not that he was very whole to begin with.

#####

Back in the other timeline, the Doctor was desperate not to let her out of his sight. Something about his mental link had been damaged when he'd gotten cut off from the other time lords, so Anna had obliged in sticking with him, laying in bed with him while he recovered.

In her own way, she was recovering, too. There was something she hadn't told either of the Doctor's, something she never would. She couldn't see the timelines as clearly as he could, but she could still sense what had been and what now never would be. She could sense the happiness that they'd shared, the wonderful life that they'd had together, and what a loss it had been that it would never come to pass. She spent the next however long mourning a life shared that now never would be.

Most of all, she mourned the broken man she could've saved and instead, had left behind.


	15. Pride and Love

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I did something a little bit different with this one, but I hope you guys like it!  
> Chapter title based on, "Pride and Prejudice."  
> I still don't own Doctor Who.

"Go on, then."

She raised her eyebrows, excitement thrumming through her veins. She threw open the doors, both of them, in a grand gesture.

It took a second for her eyes to get adjusted, but it wasn't longer than that as she stared out at the shoreline and realized exactly where they were.

"Corona Del Mar."

She took a step out.

The Tardis had landed them at the end of the jetty. In front of them, water splashed against the row of rocks that led to it's own little cement walkaway, which sat next to the beach itself. On it's other side was a channel, leading to a harbor where boats could sail.

"How did you… how did you even know?" she asked, looking over at him.

He was secretly pleased, though he had a look on his face that didn't show it. His hands were in his pockets as he took in the view, though there was a bag casually hanging off of his shoulder. "Can't tell you all of my good tricks. You already know far too many of them. Now, come on! The beach, and our date, awaits."

"Hey," she said, grabbing his hand. He looked at her, raising his eyebrows behind the sunglasses he'd put on. "Thank you."

The feeling of being secretly pleased increased, but there was an overexuberant joy that he didn't even try to conceal as they kissed.

They walked across the jetty, managing to maintain their hand-in-hand position for an impressively long time despite the rocky terrain. Ha. Rocky. This was the sort of terrain they walked across for fun. As they did, she quietly pondered all of her memories of Thanksgiving spent at this very same beach, walking across this very same jetty with her aunts and uncles and cousins, as well as her immediate family, like her brother and sister and dad. She looked across the beach and pictured them waiting for her before she shoved that thought from her mind as far as it would be shoved. She could imagine them poofing to this universe and having no idea what was going on.

She hadn't told them any of what she could do. She hadn't the time, considering that she'd utilized her full powers and scrammed as soon as the chance arose. Not that she would've done. Her mother was a separate monster, but the rest of her family… it was complicated there, too.

She shoved that thought from her mind as well. She and the Doctor were here to enjoy themselves, have their date, which apparently the Doctor was counting as their first official date despite the fact that they'd been… Well, 'going steady' for nearly six or seven years by this time. It just made her laugh, but she hadn't outright objected. He'd thought she'd abandoned him for who knew how long and had spent another fifty waiting for her. If he wanted to count this as a fresh start, she was more than happy to accommodate that.

Besides, they'd been cooped up on the Tardis for nearly a month. It was a nice distraction from recent events.

They finally reached the end of the jetty and she jumped down, taking off at a dead run across the walkway. It wasn't long before he caught up to her, quickly catching her. She let out a delighted laugh before he spun her around, pressed her against the half-wall behind her, and kissed her.

She smiled before she teleported out of reach. She laughed a little as she watched him start to fall forward into the wall, his hands still positioned where they had been (and yes, she had a low level perception filter on for any passerby's who'd seen her teleport). When the Doctor looked up at her, she shrugged.

"You're gonna have to work a lot harder than that," she told him.

His eyes glinted dangerously. "So be it, then," he said.

He hopped the wall in one incredible move and she was almost tempted to let him catch her, just because that had been rather… spectacular. When she saw the glint in his eye, she let out a delighted shout, running across the sand.

That was the thing about running across sand, though. Even with experience, it was still a challenge. This meant that it was easy for the Doctor to tackle her, turning her in mid-air so that he landed underneath her before he quickly flipped them over so that he was on top, Anna's back pressed against the sand, his hands clasping her hands above her head.

"I win," he declared.

She meant to sigh sadly, but it came out as more of a laugh because she was just so happy. "Oh, you poor, poor man," she said. "If you think _this_ is winning, you've another thing coming."

He straddled her, and she was suddenly very glad that there weren't a lot of people around. It was probably a weekday, though it was nearing afternoon, the sun starting to dip lower on the horizon.

He dipped lower over her, their faces inches apart as he stretched her arms out over her head.

"Go on, then," he said. "Prove me wrong. But, you have to do it without all of your… illustrious powers."

She raised her eyebrows, knowing that she'd never be able to, but not wanting to give him the satisfaction.

"Oh, I _totally_ could," she started, about to tease him about his ego.

His grip barely tightened on her hands, as if to prove his point. He leaned down so that their mouths were inches apart. "Then do," he invited.

She smirked, barely readjusting against him. She felt the desire rolling off of him. "Maybe I like being… _underneath_ you," she told him. "So, like I said… I win," she whispered.

He captured her lips with his, and for a few moments, they were fairly preoccupied.

They both jumped when something crashed next to them, the Doctor instinctively shielding Anna. When she looked over, she saw that it was the Doctor's bag that had slipped off of his shoulder, landing in the sand next to them. The Doctor cleared his throat and released her, even helping her to stand. She imagined the sand off of both of them, and she turned to look at the Doctor to see that he was smiling at her.

"Let's get this date on the road, shall we?"

"Appears we already have."

"Fine," he said, rolling his eyes. "Let's get this picnic on the road, shall we?"

They were quiet as they set up the blanket and he pulled an endless amount of food out of his bag. By the time it was done, there was barely any room for either of them on the blanket. She quirked an eyebrow.

"How many people did you plan to be on this date?" she asked him.

He looked over at her. "I just thought you might want options," he said, innocently, and she laughed. How could he be so incredibly _spectacular_ and adorable, all in the same stroke?

But, as they sat down to eat, she realized that that was just the Doctor. So spectacular and amazing and wonderful.

So incredibly him.

They ate in a comfortable silence and she stared at the waves, watching as the tail or the head of a dolphin occasionally popped up from the water. Despite the fact that she was content to be in that moment, she found her mind wandering back to what had happened a short week ago.

#####

_"What're you doing in here?"_

_She shook her head. "I don't know," she told him, examining the readings she'd pulled up from the scan she'd just done of the Tardis. "I had a feeling that I should be in here, and I've been looking everywhere for the reason. There's absolutely nothing out of place, every scan I've run has come back clean, and since we haven't been flung into a black hole by now, I feel like-"_

_"Sorry, what was that middle one?"_

_"Every scan I've run?" she repeated, and he quickly ran up to the screen, searching the readings._

_She flinched away from him. She'd done that a lot recently. It wasn't because of anything he'd done. It was because his emotions had been a lot more visceral since they'd gotten back from that other timeline. They felt sharper, more like they were stabbing her, and a lot more than they had been. They'd never been this, for lack of a better word, loud before. Truth be told, it was a little unnerving._

_It might've even been fine, too, if it wasn't so much grief. The link in his mind was still being repaired, apparently, but in the meantime, he still felt the grief and loss that he had done when he'd felt the time lords disappear from his mind in what had been an instant._

_It wasn't as bad when they were laying in bed together. There was something comforting about her presence that dimmed it, and that aside, she got used to it, like a frog being added to a pot of lukewarm water and never noticing that the water was getting warmer until it was being boiled alive._

_"That-that doesn't- what?" he asked, and he looked over at her, the glasses put on sometime between him running over there and him scanning the readings. She wasn't much of a glasses person before she met him. Then again, she wasn't much of an 'anything' person before she met him. She cleared her throat, frowning as she looked at the readings, missing the way his eyebrows barely raised, though she didn't miss him clearing his throat._

_"When- erm, when did you start being able to read Gallifreyan?"_

_She opened her mouth before she raised her eyebrows. "Oh," she said, looking over at him._

_She'd asked him about it once, when he was still Leather Jackets, if he would teach her how to read it. He'd looked surprised for a moment before he grumbled something about the complexities of space time before trying to distract her with the floating city he hadn't brought up in years. They hadn't reached it that time either, but it was sufficient enough to distract her from it._

_But now? Now, she'd not only been able to read it, but understood it enough that, when she looked at the scans, she couldn't see anything wrong with the Tardis._

_"I don't… know?" she tried, glancing back and forth between him and the screen. "I couldn't find anything wrong with the console room itself and I got so frustrated that I just started to run scans. I didn't even think about it," she noted, raising her eyebrows as she looked again towards the screens. "Is she okay, though?"_

_"Yeah, yeah, from all the- ooh, I haven't ran that scan in ages, how'd you even do that?" he asked. Before she could explain, he spoke, looking down at her. He still had his glasses on and she had to curb the impulse once more. This time, she didn't miss the eyebrow raise or the frown that came right after. He didn't comment and neither did she. "From the very thorough scans you ran, she looks to be fine. Tip top shape." He whipped his glasses off and she felt a small modicum of disappointment, but shoved it down. This was more important. "So you just… woke up this morning with the ability to read... Gallifreyan."_

_She didn't understand the sudden emotions that seemed to be running through him as he looked down at her. None of them were good, though._

_"It was…" he seemed to answer his own question, looking down and away. He frowned, putting his hands in his pockets, before he leaned back against the console, clearing his throat, that same look on his face as he looked up at her. "I never did ask, what happened in that other timeline? Just sort of assumed you'd gotten us home and that was that."_

_Despite the rampantly negative emotions on his face, she felt something warm in her center when he said that. Home. So casual. His home was her home, and that was true as long as she wanted it to be true._

_Then, she realized what he was asking, and any semblance of a smile was lost. She looked back down at the controls, frowning as she looked up at the scans, about to distract from the situation… before she realized that she didn't have to. She trusted him. He might've been the first person she'd ever trusted in her entire life, if she thought about it. That aside, keeping this to herself wasn't doing anybody any good._

_So, she explained the situation, about what had happened with the other Doctor and how heartbreaking it had been to leave him behind._

_She cleared her throat, raising her eyebrows. "So, that's that," she told him. She'd leaned up against the console, crossing her ankles and her arms. Now, she looked up at him to see that he looked as sad as he felt. "Now, the other Doctor is heartbroken and it's my fault."_

_At that, his look shifted to something a bit more deadpanned._

_"Really?" he asked. "You don't think it's maybe the Tardis' fault for putting you all in that difficult situation in the first place?"_

_"I mean, if you want to blame her then you have to acknowledge that I was the one who brought her to life in the first place. Can't say I expected her to do that, though," she told him, searching him. "I mean, she's the Tardis. Your Tardis. Trying to trap people into lives they don't- Oh…"_

_She looked down at the grating, realization cresting through her as she looked down at the grating._

_"What?" he asked._

_She shrugged. "Makes sense, I suppose- No, of course it makes sense," she said, looking out across the console room. "The other Doctor was trapped in a life he didn't want and didn't see an end to. That would've been the same. She wanted me to know what it was like so that he- you would open up more. I mean, it wouldn't have entirely been the same, but… No, I mean-"_

_"I see what you're saying, but that still doesn't excuse it and it doesn't make it your fault. Would you have brought the Tardis to life if you'd've known she would've tried something like that?"_

_She looked at him like the answer was obvious. "Well, yeah," she told him, and surprise filtered through his eyes. "Obviously," she told him. "I would've put more safeguards in, but I wasn't going to leave the other you alone. Are you joking? Obviously I would've done."_

_There was a look on his face, awe and just a bit of... she didn't know how to describe it. If she didn't know any better, she'd say it was pride. After a moment, he cleared his throat._

_"You can read Gallifreyan now, and that's the point. Something- erm, something-something happened in the other timeline. Or, I should say what did happen in the other timeline both forced our minds into different states of grief. And, because we're both-we're both telepaths, albeit very different kinds, we- erm, well, we, we, we sort of…"_

_He'd been running his hand over the back of his head before he'd just started fidgeting in a general sense. After a moment or two, he shook his head._

_"There isn't really a good word for it in English," he told her. "But, basically, our minds were both pushed into such terrible states of grief that-that-that, they didn't exactly form a link, but, erm, well, basically, our minds reached out to each other, and-and-and it's not, it's not a link, persay, more something along the lines of, well, like- like two computers networking in order to solve a problem!" he happily declared, before he cleared his throat and looked away. "It's sort of-it's sort of like our minds wanted a better way to solve our grief, so they-they connected, sort of, like, like pooling resources together. So, there's certain… skills that both of us have picked up from each other. Gallifreyan, for example, because now in an emergency, you know how to operate the Tardis."_

_She frowned. "Okay," she said, slowly. "What did you get?"_

_"Well, I don't know," he said. "Anything that your mind would find useful in a-a worst case scenario, basically."_

_She froze. Completely. And utterly._

_"Anna, no, no, it's-it's all right, I can feel your emotions, yes, but I'll-I'll never- I can even- I mean, I can't block it out, not entirely-"_

_She raised her eyebrows, suddenly doing event math._

_The Doctor was one of the best people that she knew, but he was also one of the darkest. If Time Lord Victorious was still a thing here (which she was hoping fiercely it wouldn't be because she was here, but worst case scenario), and he knew how to do the 'it takes no energy trick'?_

_"Oh, this is so bad," she whispered, quietly._

_"Anna, listen, listen," he said, as he started over to her. He gently rested his hands on her shoulders. "I know that what your mother did to you as absolutely atrocious," she frowned, confused, "and I don't want you to think that I'm in anyway discrediting your emotions, because I'm not. I just want to let you know that I- well, I- I hope that I have shown you that I'm not her, and that even though I have hurt you an incredible amount, that I won't hurt you the same way she has."_

_She frowned harder, searching him. "What're you talking about?" she asked him, furrowing her brows._

_"The-erm, the emotions, thing."_

_"The emotions- Oh… Oh. Oh, is that- is that why your emotions have been so visceral lately?"_

_She'd kept wanting to interrupt herself about this stupid emotions conversation because it didn't matter, but every single time she tried, she'd get hit with the feeling that she shouldn't._

_"Well… yeah," he said, lamely. "I mean, I guess I didn't really think about you being able to feel my emotions, so sorry about that. That can't have been any fun for you."_

_She laughed a little. "Seriously?" she asked. "You're feeling some of the worst grief that I've ever felt, and you're worried about how fun it's been for me?" she shook her head, wrapping her arms around his waist. He seemed surprised by the gesture and she'd no idea why. "Don't worry about that," she told him, quietly. "I just-"_

_"So you're… not bothered by the fact that I can feel your emotions?"_

_"Goodness, no," she told him. "Sort of assumed you had been this entire time. Was I not supposed to have my empathy turned on this entire time? Sorry," she told him, and she withdrew from him, even as she felt the loss of her touch coming from him._

_"No, it's-it's fine, that's not- I don't mind, I just thought you would assume so I've-I've sort of been blocking off that part of myself when it comes to your emotions."_

_She narrowed her eyes at him. "You can do that?" she asked him._

_"Do what?"_

_"Specifically block off your emotions when it comes to one person," she said._

_He opened his mouth before he frowned. "You can't?"_

_She shrugged. "Dunno, never tried it- that is not the point!" she said, looking at him. "The-erm, the-the-thing, connection, whatever, does it- I mean, do you know what you got, from me?"_

_He frowned. "Did you know that you could read Gallifreyan before I pointed it out to you?"_

_"No," she said, before she let out a breath of relief. "I didn't-didn't even know that I was doing it when I was doing it, and I probably wouldn't have if you hadn't've said anything."_

_He frowned further. "Why?" he asked. "What did I-"_

_"The building blocks of the universe," she said, in a deadpan voice. "Although," she said, considering it as she leaned back up against the console, considerably more relaxed. "I mean, just because you know something doesn't- No, never mind, anyway, it's fine- why're you looking at me like that?"_

_"You're telling me that your 'in emergency break glass' strategy is the building blocks of the universe?"_

_She laughed a little. "It's a bit more complicated than that."_

_"But the building blocks of the universe?" he asked, incredulous._

_She laughed a little. "It doesn't matter," she told him. "As long as you don't know that you can do it, even if it is an emergency, then we're fine. Except, I did this and it wasn't actually an emergency."_

_"I did notice that, yeah," he said, leaning up against the console once more as he rubbed his hand over the back of his head. He kept doing that with the same amount of frequency and he'd be bald before he regenerated._

_It hit her, then, that this him would regenerate. That the other him had regenerated. It was easier for her with Leather Jacket, both watching the show and when it had actually happened, because in both cases, she hadn't really thought about it. She'd see this him regenerate, though, and that was best case scenario. Assuming that Time Lord Victorious didn't…_

_She was filled with something, but she didn't know what. She didn't know how to explain it, just a desperate sort of urgency as she walked over to him, even as he talked._

_"I mean, I just sort of assumed it was because you can do impossible things so- woah-"_

_She grabbed him by his lapels, pulled him to her, and kissed him._

_He responded in kind, not even missing a step. It was strange, sharing emotions with someone. Her desire bounced off of his and then was added to it, until they were consuming each other like their grief had consumed them for so long._

#####

"Penny for your thoughts?"

She shrugged. "Just thinking."

"About?"

She shrugged again, smiling. "Not important," she told him, grabbing his hand. "What _is_ important is that we're currently on the beach that I spent Thanksgiving's at, growing up."

Anna was surprised when she felt the surprise coming from him, as well as the small modicum of disappointment that she could feel.

"What?" he asked. "Then why… I don't understand, I set the Tardis to pick your favorite spot in the universe," he said, glancing around. "Why would she choose here?"

She raised her eyebrows. "Revealing all of your tricks now, aren't you?"

"I'm serious," he said, and she frowned.

"Why?" she asked. "And why shouldn't it be my favorite place in the universe?"

"Why would it be?" he asked her, looking back at her. "I mean, Thanksgiving, besides being a backwards holiday in and of itself-" she started to object before she let it slide. It wasn't like she could argue. "-wouldn't you have spent it with family? Namely, a certain family member of the she-who-must-not-be-named variety?"

"I didn't know Voldemort switched to 'she' pronouns. Good for her."

"Anna, I'm serious," he said, and her eyes barely widened when she realized that he was, no small amount of upset racing through him.

"Honestly, it's-it's fine," she said. "My parents were divorced before they were divorced, so we always had separate Thanksgiving. This was the Thanksgiving place I spent with my dad's side of the family. Besides, when I got older and went through a depressive episode, I would come down here every week to relax, to write, to blow off steam. It was nice. So, yeah. Favorite place in the universe. Although, I mean, if we're getting technical, I suppose the only reason that she didn't choose herself was because it would technically be impossible to land the Tardis inside of the Tardis unless you wanted the console room to explode, so…" She nodded, looking around. "But, you know, this is a _great_ close second."

She didn't have to look at him to know how touched he was by what she'd said. She looked over at him anyway to see the expression matched his feelings, and she smiled.

"I love you," he said.

He just said it. Just like that. So casual and so easy and like it wasn't even a thought in his mind that he loved her, that she was so loved by him that he didn't even have to give it a second thought in order to say it. Everything about it made everything about her center warm up, and his lips curved up into an easy smile at the feeling of it.

"Well, I love you, too," she said, and she pulled him in for a kiss before she quickly pulled away. "Now, let's pack up this feast."

"Where are we off to?" he asked, though she knew he wasn't objecting. The seagulls were circling and there were no children around to chase them away.

"To explore! There's a cave that I want to see if it made it to this universe, because I didn't have a way to break in underneath the grating to see what mysteries it housed. Now, I've multiple ways, and _bonus_ , I've got _you_ , which is just gonna make it _so much more fun_."

He stood so that they were facing, before he pulled her close.

"Anna Monroe," he said, their happiness bouncing off of each other and only multiplying it exponentially. "You really know a way to a man's hearts."

As they kissed once more, she fought to remember the last time she was this happy. She couldn't say she ever remembered being happier.

Not even the seagulls moving in could dampen her mood, even making her laugh at the look on the Doctor's face as he chased them away.

She looked at the Doctor and smiled, truly happy for what might've been the first time in her life.

It wasn't long before they were packed up and heading across the beach to the grassy knoll that rested next to the parking lot. The beach was sort of sectioned off weirdly like that. She ignored this thought as she walked past the row of benches and grills that took up residence, before the sprawling grassy knoll overtook that as well. It lead them to the rocks, which picked up in an incline before they reached the top of the cliff face to see that it overlooked the same channel, though she couldn't make out the jetty from here.

They walked down the stairs to the small side beach before she directed him to the spot under the rocks, which he pointed out that she'd incorrectly labeled as a cave when it was really more of an alcove. Still, he played along and helped her to break open the grating after they'd crawled underneath the space.

It turned out that it was an ordinary alcove filled with random beach litter, though she and the Doctor were both taken by surprise when there was alien graffiti that lined the back of the walls that amounted to, "Tillilian was here," in big bold letters that looked stunningly similar to Persian script before it was translated.

"That's neat," she said, in a completely unsarcastic voice, and the Doctor hummed his agreement, running the screwdriver along it and the alcove but finding no signals or anything else out of the ordinary, besides the random writing they'd found.

Of course, they would miss the Bad Wolf graffiti scrawled around a corner that neither of them saw, and so they crawled away, none the wiser.

In the end, they ended up at the top of the cliff face, staring out at the waves. She intertwined her hand with his, their fingers and arms laced together, her head leaned against his arm as they stared out at the waves.

"It's weird," she started.

"Hm?"

"It's just… I haven't been back here in years. Haven't even thought of home since that 'Christmas' we spent at the strip mall, and it's like…" she shook her head. "I don't miss it. Not at all."

"Why is that strange?" he asked her. She felt him turning to look down at her, but she didn't look up at him, simply responding.

"I spent so many years terrified to get away from home. I didn't even attend a college that far from my house. Never had a job that was more than half an hour from where I grew up." She bit her lip, shaking her head. "I never thought that I would be happy without it. But, I don't miss it. I barely even think about it." She pursed her lips, shaking her head again. "I haven't even thought about my family all that much, outside of the obvious."

"Is that a bad thing?"

"No," she told him. "It's just… wasted time, I guess. I kept… waiting for my life to start, and I didn't even know it was because I was so scared to leave all of this behind." She pushed her head more firmly into his shoulder. "But, here I am with you, as far from that place as one could theoretically get… And I've never been happier."

Both of them already knew why what she was saying was true. Abuse did that to a person, made them feel like the only safe place was the places that they knew. One of her psychologists had pointed out that it was because the abused person knew where the misery was coming from, and that's why they stuck around. It was safer, in some convoluted away.

But, looking out at the beach, she knew that was wrong. Misery was everywhere, that was true, but she thought that maybe abused people stuck around because their happiness was in such short supply that their brain wouldn't let them take away their only source of happiness that they knew for certain they would get.

In her opinion, humans were more often than not creatures of optimism. Why else would chocolate have been invented? Somebody took a chance that a weird plant they'd found would taste good when consumed. They were optimistic that happiness could be found in even the strangest of places and the smallest of ways.

But, talking about why she'd been in the same place would lead to talk about she-who-must-not-be-named, and neither of them had any interest in that. This moment wasn't about her. It was about them and the mutual happiness they'd found in each other.

As if to prove her point, the Doctor spoke. "Well, the feeling is very mutual," he told her, and she smiled, turning to him to capture his lips with hers.

After a moment, she spoke.

"What do you say? About time we head home?"

She couldn't describe the elated feeling that rushed through him at the fact that she'd called it home. A huge smile crossed his face, every part of it lit up with that happiness.

"I couldn't have said it better myself."


	16. Young Anna Monroe Part I

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There's a lot happening in this chapter, and I definitely meant for this to be more zany fun than it turned out being. I'm not a science person, but I did try to cobble together some technical science-y stuff, so any lack of a fancy explanation is on me because I literally made up this tech.  
> This is technically a two-parter, but it's not directly related like the previous one was. You'll see what I mean when you read the next chapter  
> Chapter title based on, "Young Goodman Brown."  
> I still don't own Doctor Who.

"You've brought me to Texas."

The distaste he felt coming from her was more than just distaste. It was bitterness and, if he weren't mistaken, a small tang of grief that rested just on the edges of her senses. It was a lot of emotion to have about one place.

" _Wow_ , what've you got against Texas?"

"What?" she asked, turning to look at him, the look of disdain being wiped off of her face. At the look on his, she raised her eyebrows. "Um. Everything?"

From the way she was looking, he thought she might've been more excited to be crawling through sewers. Actually, they _had_ crawled through sewers. Multiple times. With the emotions she was feeling, he thought she might've preferred being there any day.

She let out a dramatic sigh before she took off her sunglasses, wiping at her eyes with one hand. It had been a long time since Anna had instantly changed out of her clothes, but there she was, changed out of her jumper that hung off of her shoulder into a light tank top, though the shorts remained the same, as did the strappy sandals. Just peeking out from underneath her shorts was the tattoo that he'd gotten a look at many times over. It was a compass with the words, 'Not all who wander are lost' written around it in 'elegant' script (her words, not his).

"I don't have anything against Texas," she told him, as they stood in the parking lot of the movie theater they'd landed in front of. She held onto her sunglasses, though she crossed her arms as she looked around, an almost worried look on her face. "Just… bad experiences, that's all. Come on."

He raised his eyebrows, watching her walk away (and getting slightly distracted for a moment at that fact) before he shoved his hands into his pockets and caught up to her. "You know," he started, conversationally, "we've got all of time and space at our fingertips. If you don't like this place, we're not short on options to choose from."

There wasn't a hint of a smile, and there wasn't a hint that she was letting up. The bitterness even seemed to increase at that, and he frowned.

"Seriously, what's wrong?"

She shook her head, adjusting the suddenly appeared knit purple bag she had slung across her shoulder. "As _much_ as I would love to take off and, _believe me_ , I would, there's things what need doing here. Mystery afoot, and all."

"Oh?" he asked, taking a few steps closer to her so that he was almost touching her. "What kind of mystery?"

"The kind where ushers who clean movie theaters by themselves are going missing," she told him.

He frowned, looking down at her. "That's a very specific feeling."

She heaved out a sigh before she looked down, stopping at the last row of cars before they got to the concrete curb that would take them to the theater itself.

"It's not just a feeling."

He didn't understand why she sounded so defeated.

"Okay," he said, trying to portray reassurance. "Then what is it?"

She bit her lip, looking up at the theater. They were somewhere in the late 2010s, judging by the make and models of the cars (because electric cars didn't really get popular until now), not to mention the fact that theaters during this time period all had the same grand architecture leading into the theater as well as the board pasted onto the theater itself proudly proclaiming their latest showings.

She let out a breath through her nose, looking worriedly at the theater. She didn't look at him as she spoke. "Before I'd utilized the full potential of my powers, I had… there was a lot of stored up energy, I guess, with nothing to do. Sometimes, I'd… accidentally make things happen." She looked over at him. "This is one of them."

He frowned, searching her. "You're telling me that you're making these ushers go missing?" he asked.

"Well. Yeah," she said.

He didn't understand why she looked so downhearted, but confusion was trailing through him.

"Then _stop_?" he tried. If she was making it happen, then why was she acting like it wasn't her choice that it was occurring?

Confusion crested through her before realization lit her up. "No, no, it's not- I'm not _making_ them go missing, I-I sort of- I imagined it happening, like I was cleaning a theater one day and thought, man, wouldn't it suck if something took ushers while they were cleaning theaters by themselves?"

"Hold on, you were cleaning a theater one day?" he asked. "You were an usher?"

"I mean, yeah, I was-"

"At this theater?" he asked, motioning to the theater. There was no point questioning how so much of her home universe had made it to his. It just had, and that was that.

"Well, no, at a different one- the-the one at the strip mall that we went to that one Christmas?"

He raised his eyebrows, glancing around, before he looked back down at her. "I still don't understand," he told her.

Irritation was grinding through her so fiercely that it almost physically hurt. He went so far as to start to hold up his hands in self-defense.

"What _don't_ you understand?" she asked him. "Ushers are going missing and it's my fault."

"Okay, but even if that _were_ true-"

"It _is_ ," she snapped at him.

" _Fine_ ," he shot back at her. She seemed to realize that she was snapping at him, but she didn't apologize, simply looking down and crossing her arms. "But, last I checked, we were in _Texas_ ," he pointed out. She wanted to make a comment but she bit it back. " _That_ theater is in California. Say you did make that happen, so wouldn't it be in the place that you thought about it happening?"

Her head shot up to look at him, her eyebrows raised.

"Oh," she said, quietly, looking around. "Right." She worried her bottom lip and he was momentarily distracted by the action before she rubbed at her forehead, heaving out a sigh. "It is entirely possible that the abuse that I've suffered made me believe, during that time, that anything that I simply saw happening was me making it happen because I was taught that anything bad that happened was my fault, even though it wasn't?"

A fierce protectiveness of her washed over him. For a moment, he wished that he could travel back to the Anna that she was talking about so that he could be there for her in her darkest hour.

But, it was not meant to be. Mostly because he wasn't sure how even a younger Anna would react to a television show character coming to life in front of her.

So, he did the next best thing instead, wrapping her up in his arms and planting a kiss on the top of her head.

"Every bad thing that happens is not your fault," he told her.

He felt her waver for a second before he was content that she fell into the comfort instead of pushing it away, hugging him even tighter.

"Still, mystery afoot!" he said, pulling back from her before he laced their fingers together. She'd settled down and was now in a relaxed sort of state, completely calm as they stepped up to the curb that led to the theater. "Ushers missing and everything. Do you know what's taking them?"

"Oh, not a clue," she said, as she started towards the glass bubble where they sold tickets.

"Helpful, what're you doing?"

"Buying tickets."

"What for?"

She shrugged. "Because it's nice."

He leaned down close, whispering in her ear, "But neither of us have got any money- there we are, then," he said as she held up two American twenty dollar bills in his face. He rolled his eyes before he stood up tall, glancing this way and that while she purchased the tickets for some movie called, "47 Meters Down: Uncaged".

He frowned. "Hold on," he said, looking down at her as she stowed the change in her purse. "How'd you know it was Texas?"

She raised her eyebrows before a smirk crossed her face. "Well, it was the heat that really gave it away, since, hello, summer heat and it's, like, a million degrees. But, what really gave it away was the _licenses plates_ ," she shared conspiratorially.

"Oh. Right."

She laughed. "Come on," she said, and she dragged him into the theater.

When they got inside, the cool air instantly hit him. He hadn't been bothered by the heat, but there was a noticeable difference in temperature, as was present in most theaters during this time. The theater itself was an open floor plan, with one man at a kiosk looking entirely too bored as he waited to take tickets. The door to the theaters themselves lined the walls in front of them, three on each side, and where there weren't doors, there were arcade games. Not 'old school' stuff, just there for kids who needed to pass the time (though didn't most children have handheld tablets by this time? Arcade games seemed a bit obsolete. Not that he was complaining. Who didn't love a good round of Pac-Man?). At the far end was the concessions stand, with just as equally bored looking employees. Patrons were mainly in the older looking category, though it made sense. According to the digital clock on the wall, it was ten in the morning, which meant the main crowd at this time of day would be retirees.

The ticket taker took their tickets before he waved them through with a cursory, "Enjoy your film," before he moved onto the next patrons.

"I've just realized that we purchased tickets," he pointed out as she guided them to the hall on the left, passing the restrooms, as well as movie posters and posters that warned patrons not to record the films they were watching that hung on the wall.

"That's very observerative of you," she praised him.

He frowned. "Observative?"

"Observant," she quickly corrected herself. "Which you were, just then, pointing out that we'd bought movie tickets." She dropped to a stage whisper as they walked hand in hand down the hall. "What's your point?"

He dropped to the same stage whisper. "We're not actually here to see a movie, so why've we bought movie tickets? Wouldn't it be easier if we just used the psychic and asked to see the manager, get information more directly?"

She stopped at the top of the hall, glancing left and right, before she approached a theater that had a trash can stationed outside of it.

"What's wrong with the more direct approach?" she asked him, quickly sneaking into the theater.

It was still dark, the movie nearing it's end (which he knew because some main character was narrating some epic point about life being beautiful and all, as well as the swelling music in the background that gave it away).

His eyes roamed the theater to see that it was nearly empty, save for the two or three people who were still watching the movie.

"What are we doing?" he asked her, in an actual quiet whisper, ducking his head down so his lips were right next to her ear.

She shivered at that, and he felt a thrill of something run through both of them, before they curbed the impulse at the same time. They were busy. That said nothing about later, though.

"You are scanning for alien tech," she told him, in a normal voice.

He shushed her, glancing around, before he looked down to see the very unobservant humans were simply watching their movie.

She laughed, an almost trilling sound. "Relax," she told him, and she reached her arm out and touched something just on the edge of it. It rippled underneath her touch. "Sound bubble." She sat down at a seat in the top row, putting her feet up on the seat in front of her. He knocked them off a moment later, shooting her a look. "What?" she asked, not snarky but like snarky's second cousin.

"It's disrespectful," he said, pulling out his sonic.

"It's a sound bubble, not a light bubble," she pointed out, as he started to sonic the darkened theater. "People will think that you've got your phone out. Terribly rude, that."

"Ta," he said, glancing back at her, about to scan, before he did a double take, his hand dropping to his side with the scredriver still in it. Anna was currently eating popcorn, her legs criss crossed in her chair. She was also wearing sunglasses, though he quickly realized they were of the 3D variety. "What're you doing?"

She looked up at him, imploringly. "Hm? What?"

"You're eating _popcorn_. Why're you eating _popcorn_?"

"Well, I couldn't exactly eat _burgers_ , could I? Considering I'm a vegetarian, and all."

"Sorry, what?"

"What?" she asked. "No, stop it, you're busy, scan the theater. Go on." She nudged him with her arm.

"Seriously?" he asked.

"Yeah, come on. Alien tech afoot. Be the dashing hero I know you can be."

His mood changed in an instant. "I'm _definitely_ not a hero," he told her, scanning the theater as she'd told him to do. "Though, dashing, I will take."

"No, you're Brooding McBuzzkill," she told him, and he looked down at her mid-scan, genuinely affronted. " _Don't put your feet on the seat, Anna, it's disrespectful, don't eat popcorn, Anna, we're in the middle of something, don't_ \- seriously, are you planning on scanning sometime today or what?"

"Seriously, what's gotten into you?"

At that, she dug deeper into her seat, a look on her face as she stared at the screen. "I told you I don't like Texas," she told him, muttering. "Scanning or what?"

He told himself he'd ask her about it later, but for now, he did as she asked, finishing his scan. He looked at the sonic to see that it read that there was alien tech, and quite a bit of it.

"Huh," he said, and he glanced around. "That's… odd."

"What is?"

"Well," he said. "I'm getting three different kinds of alien tech. There's a teleporter, obviously, because how else would ushers be going missing right under a theaters nose, the second is much more interesting. It's a Neuroreceptor Vacilitator."

"Which is?"

"As an empath, I'm sure you're well aware that humans do more than feel emotions. They emit them."

"Great."

"So, basically, even after the person has had the emotion, there's still an almost… leftover print still hanging about in the air. A Neuroreceptor Vacilitator not only detects the emotion, but… basically grabs it from the air and stores it."

"For what?"

"That brings me to my third piece of alien tech," he told her. "Which is the Neuroreceptor Vacilitator Conduit Transfer."

"No, no, I've got this, I've got this!" she said, and she stood. "It transfers the available emotions to a chosen conduit."

"Very good," he praised, and she stood up taller, clasping her hands behind her back. "Transfers it to the conduit, before it gets teleported up to the ship that is no doubt hanging about in the lower atmosphere."

He looked up as if he could actually see said ship hanging about in the lower atmosphere. It was likely cloaked in more ways than one.

"Great!" she said. "What's the conduit."

He frowned, looking down at her. "Seriously?"

She blinked up at him innocently. "Seriously what?"

"The conduit," he said. "The whole reason that we're here?"

She frowned. "We're not here because of the conduit, we're here because of the- _oh_ , you're saying- but how?"

He frowned as well. "What do you mean, how?" he searched her. "Seriously, are you feeling all right? You're not usually this slow."

It was a sentence he would've taken back a million times over. It was already out in the open for her to be fairly offended by, an actual sting of hurt washing through her.

"No, Anna, I didn't-"

"Well, I'm sorry we can't all be super genius _rockstars_ all the time!" she shot back at him, as she elbowed past him.

"Where are you- Anna! What about the ushers?"

"We've to exit the theater so that they can come in and clean it," she told him angrily, her voice reflecting the emotions she was feeling.

"Anna, I'm sorry, I didn't mean- you're not slow, you're just slower than usual, that's all, I didn't mean-"

They exited the theater and the usher who stood there bid them a good day. He wasn't sure if the usher, Troy, would even be able to hear him, so he just gave a quick smile and a nod before he walked after Anna.

"Really, I'm-" he started, before he stopped, glancing back at the usher. "Hold on, if ushers who're cleaning theaters alone are going missing, why haven't they got them paired up?"

His eyes widened as he realized that it was likely that this was the first time it was about to happen.

Anna, the wonderful, brilliant person that she was, saw it before it had even happened and was now stopping it before anybody had even been taken.

"Anna, really, I'm sorry," he said, catching up to her.

He was surprised when she whirled around on him, reaching out and clutching onto him for all she was worth, crushing him in a hug.

"I know," she told him, as he hugged her back, though her words were muffled in his shoulder. "I know you didn't mean anything by it. I just really hate Texas. It's a fine state, I haven't got anything against it as a state, I just have way too many bad memories here." She looked up at him. "Promise me that we'll do our best to avoid coming back here."

He nodded instantly. "Okay," he told her, and she nodded before she once again rested her head on his shoulder.

"Okay, come on," she said, grabbing his hand.

"What?"

"The usher just went inside. We're pretending that I lost my phone."

"What for?"

"Because hopefully the teleporter will teleport all three of us up."

He started to explain that it would specifically target the conduit to be brought up.

"That's not how it works, but I've an idea."

"Okay," she said, and they headed back inside.

"No, I'm sure I felt it drop at the front," he told Anna. The lights in the theater were on, the screen blank. Troy the usher looked back at them in surprise. "I think it might've rolled under the-"

"Hello! Sorry to interrupt, did you two lose something?"

"Yeah, we did. Wanted to play the arcade games, so I brought a whole roll of quarters, must've slipped out of my pocket. Felt something dropping out, didn't even think to stop," he told Troy.

"I can help look," he offered.

He was sure that Anna could feel it, the vacilitator working as it sucked the leftover emotions out of the air. They needed to work faster.

"No, you know what, we're fine here," he said. "We've got it, go on, clean the theater, don't mind us."

Troy glanced between them for a second before he nodded. "All right. Let me know if you need anything."

"Will do, _sound bubble, sound bubble_ ," he muttered the last four words to Anna, and she quickly obliged, kneeling down in front of the curtain. He quickly pulled it back to see the teleporter that rested there, and he started to sonic it, quickly programming it to recognize them as the new conduits.

"Oh, _no_!"

He immediately stood, holding out his screwdriver in front of him. When he looked over, he saw that there was alarm written all over Anna's face, and when his eyes quickly scanned the theater, he saw that Troy had disappeared.

He frowned. "That doesn't make sense, the vacilitator-"

"Maybe you tripped the teleport, doesn't matter," she said. She was taking three strides to the middle of the space between the front row and the screen. He quickly saw why when Troy was suddenly laying down in the middle of it, not moving.

"Oh, no, no, no," he said, and he rushed to Troy's other side.

"Shit, shit, _shit_!" she cursed, before she put her hands on Troy's chest.

"I don't understand, the vacilitator hadn't even- What're you-"

She had a palm flat on his chest, the other was in a fist shape. She tapped her fist against the back of her hand, "One, two, _three_!"

On three, she brought her fist down on her palm, hard. A burst of blue and white energy shot out from him in a wave, and Troy sucked in a breath, partially sitting up as he coughed. The Doctor looked up at Anna, amazed.

"Did you just bring him back to-"

"You're okay, you're okay, just breathe, just- n-"

She threw herself on top of Troy. A moment later, she disappeared, Troy still coughing all the while.

The Doctor immediately jumped up to the teleport, trying to now purposefully trip it so that it would take him up to the ship as well. Two seconds later, there was a beeping that he thought signaled that he was about to be taken up, but a moment after that, it sparked and started to smoke.

"Oh, no, don't do that!" he shouted at it, waving the smoke away with his hand.

_Boom!_

His head shot up and the ground underneath him shook. He paid it no mind as he raced towards the exit door, slamming it open.

He stopped, staring at the wreckage in front of him.

There was a fireball in the sky.

It was poised mid-air, smoke and flames roaring off of it. It only took his mind a second to put together what it had been: the spaceship in the lower atmosphere. Except, it was no longer in the lower atmosphere. It was now heading directly for the Texas soil.

He quickly ran for the Tardis. Thoughts of Anna shot through the back of his mind, but the only thing he could hope right now was that she'd teleported herself and the other occupants off of the ship before it had exploded. He'd never be able to pick through the wreckage and find her body, but there had been a latent dimensional energy signature that he might be able to use-

He would find her. He would. He had to. But, right now, he had to focus on getting the ship somewhere that it didn't crash into a bunch of civilians.

He made it to the Tardis in record time, jumping into the ship before running around as fast as he could. Short hops weren't her forte, and he hadn't actually flown her since that incident with Donna on the motorway, but it would have to do.

He was to the crashing ship in no time and, luckily enough for him, the ship was slow moving enough that he was able to grab it in a tractor beam. He quickly pulled them both up to Earth's upper atmosphere, though the console sparked unhappily at him as he did so.

"I know, I know, just hang on!" he shouted, hoping that the ship could hear him. It occurred to him on his peripheral that he still hadn't seen Anna and that, if she had made it off of the ship, she would be doing this herself, but he ignored this thought and continued to pilot the ship.

When he reached his destination, the flames were quickly put out and he quickly looked for a fairly unpopulated region of the states before he landed the ship down below. He wasn't worried about the wreckage, considering that the ship had been so completely decimated that even humans would have a hell of time deciphering the technology that had come with it. When he'd landed them, he ran a scan and cursed at the fact that Anna was, in fact, still on board. Well, her body was, anyway.

Not even taking a moment's pause, he ran out to the wreckage, already programming the sonic to alert him via beeping when he got close to her.

The ship, as he'd thought, was a complete wreck. Nothing could've survived this and, judging by the corpses he found aboard the ship, still standing at their stations, nothing had.

When he got to the middle of the ship, his stomach turned and he held onto the door jamb.

Anna.

It was her, even if her body was stuck to the floor, burnt to a crisp. His knee jerk reaction was to freeze and just stare at her, his mind frozen on the thought that the woman he loved was dead, burnt to nothing.

She wasn't dead.

Well, she was, but she wouldn't be for long. He had to get her back to the Tardis and find a way to administer pain killers before she managed to find a semblance of herself again. There was no use in making this more traumatic for her than it already would be.

Okay, and that was great, except for the fact that her body was literally stuck to the floor.

He let out an honest to god growl, and panic of a genuine kind started to crawl through him when he could hear the beating of a helicopter's blades off of in the distance. Anna would heal. It was just a matter of how quickly, and how much the scientists who'd detained them would rip her apart before that happened.

He started to separate her body from the floor with the sonic, breaking apart the molecules that had fused together. It was taking too long, and he glanced back at the door. "Come on, come on!" he shouted.

When he heard the helicopter land and the police sirens started to get dangerously close, he looked down at Anna, regret on his face.

"Sorry about this," he said, to the burned to a crisp body that sat in front of him. He could probably take solace in the fact that she wouldn't be able to feel it. "One, two-"

He pulled her body from the floor and she screamed.

Surprise had him dropping her body to the ground. "I'm sorry, I'm so-"

He heard the helicopter doors opening and he glanced back.

"No time, no time!" he shouted, and he quickly picked her up, running them out into the hall. He could feel her awareness returning, albeit slowly.

A thought he hadn't had before occurred to him. The connection, for lack of a better word, should've died with her. Don't get him wrong, he was so terribly grateful that it hadn't. The pain of something like that alone might've thrown him into a state of frenzied grief for _years_. The question was, why hadn't it?

It was obviously something that Anna had done, and he vowed to himself he'd ask her about it later, but for now, he ran them outside and back to the-

-Tardis.

He came to an abrupt halt, breathing hard when a line of guns with their respective humans attached pointed at him and Anna. Anna was gaining consciousness and when he glanced down, he saw that she was mostly healed, though the skin was still taking on a pinkish hue.

"Stop right there-"

"-girl down-"

"-hands up! Both of you, put your hands up!"

He let out an errant growl before he spoke to Anna.

"Don't make any sudden moves, I'm putting you down," he told her, and he did as he was told, putting her down on the grass below.

He got on his knees, putting his hands behind his head. Anna, who had gained consciousness and healed quite quickly, did the same, though she was fairly bleary about it, as if she were waking up after a long sleep instead of dying.

His hearts clenched and he grit his teeth as he looked over at the men in suits that were approaching them, still with guns pointing at them. In the background, the Doctor could see the black SUVs that were quickly pulling up behind them.

"Anna," he started, casually. "Up for some tea?"

It was the code they'd come up with a while back to mean teleport, as in, teleport them out of there.

His eyes widened when, out of the corner of his eye, he saw Anna fall forward, falling unconscious. He went to catch her but the men with guns started to shout at him.

"Don't hurt her, don't hurt her!" he shouted back. "She's just fallen unconscious, please-"

"Face down, on the ground."

Every part of him was battling to get them back to the Tardis, but Anna was still unconscious (and it was only due to the urgency she'd felt in the connection that she'd even come to at all, he realized, belatedly) and these men had a lot of guns and no issue with using them. He let out a frustrated noise before he planted himself in the grass below him.

He could blame his slowness on the fact that he'd just seen the woman he loved burnt to nothing.

"I'm-We're with MI-6, we're with MI-6, I've got credentials in my coat pocket, we're investigating, same as you lot, I swear, my credentials are in my coat pocket."

That made them pause, though they'd already managed to cuff him. He let out a breath of relief, barely sagging to the grass below. He felt surprise when they rolled him over, the guns still pointing at him, and he glanced over at Anna to see that she was still unconscious, though somebody appeared to be checking her pulse.

He felt somebody rummaging around in his coat pocket and, lucky for him, they grabbed onto the psychic first thing.

Not so lucky for him as their eyes scrutinized the paper and then they spoke. "These aren't credentials. This is psychic paper," he said, before he pocketed the psychic. He felt genuine surprise run through him, along with a fair bit of annoyance. Seriously? Americans had to get clever _now_? "You and your… partner are under arrest for violating American Airspace." He let out a frustrated breath, but didn't object when he felt himself being rolled over. "You're being detained to a secure facility for further questioning."

"This is an honest mistake, we were just passing through-" he tried, as he was hauled up before he was dragged to one of the SUVs. "Really, there is no need for this, I can explain, just let me- phone, I get a phone call, don't I? Don't- Oi."

He'd been put into one of the SUVs, and they put a black bag over his head.

He took the cue and let them drive him where they would in silence, mostly because he wanted to keep a constant eye on his connection with Anna. She seemed to be all right, though she'd regained consciousness. She didn't seem to be fond of the people who were forcing her into her own SUV, but it wasn't a terrified, _They're hurting me_ , vibe, it was more along the lines of she'd just been woken up too early and was grumpy. It made his hearts sag with relief, even if he couldn't stop picturing her burnt body stuck to the floor of that alien ship, the one that he still had no idea was doing here in the first place. Earth was a Level 5 planet. Why had they even come here? And, if they'd wanted emotions, why take them from a movie theater of all places? An amusement park would've been better. Maybe they just hadn't done their research. Maybe they were new to the area.

None of this made any sense, but he couldn't make it make sense. The only thing he could do was sit quietly and allow himself to be detained, and hope that Anna continued to be all right.

The ride was surprisingly short, though he kept in mind the route so that he and Anna could get back to the spot when they needed to. It wasn't long before he was being led through hallway after hallway, also doing the whole song and dance of examining what was in his pockets and all that.

"I'm telling you, this has been a misunderstanding," he tried, hoping it was a different agent than the one who recognized the psychic. "I've already said, me and my partner, we're from MI-6. If someone would just pick up the phone, tell them that you've got their agent, codename the Doctor-" and he was pretty sure he had connections at this point that would at least vouch for him, if not begrudgingly. "-then they'll tell you the same thing that I've been telling you, which is that this has just been a big misunderstanding."

They removed the handcuffs, only to roughly sit him down in a, quite frankly, uncomfortable, cold metal chair. They transferred the handcuffs to the table before they finally took the bag off of his head.

There was a woman standing in front of him, looking down at something in her hands with bland disinterest. He realized a moment later what it was.

"Hold on, that's mine, I'd like it back," he said.

"Psychic paper," she noted, dryly. "Last I checked, MI-6 doesn't use psychic paper for identification. And, their agents don't generally have two hearts."

He frowned, ignoring the jab at his double heartedness. "How do Americans even know about psychic paper?"

She smiled, though it was with no warmth. "Not even going to ask how I know you're an alien?"

Americans. They were the worst to get detained by for the simple matter that they had to preen their feathers about the fact that they were so smart for catching him in the first place, never mind whatever _else_ they'd found.

"Yes, you're very clever, can I have my psychic paper back now?"

She closed it with one hand, holding it upright between two fingers as she scrutinized him with much the same look.

"What are you?"

"Well, for starters, fairly inconvenienced," he told her, leaning back in his seat.

The look on her face read that she wasn't amused. "I meant species."

"I really don't care what you meant. Seriously, have you called MI-6 yet? Because they can-"

"You want me to call MI-6?" she asked, and he raised his eyebrows.

"Obviously."

"Then you answer a few questions first."

"Oh, for the-" He threw himself back in his seat, exasperated as he looked away, though he didn't object more than that. "Fine," he said. "Yes, I'm an alien. Yes, I liaison with MI-6. No, that spaceship crashing was neither mine nor my partner's fault- well, technically speaking, I suppose, though also just as technically, I actually stopped it from crashing on a populated area, so really, you should be pinning me with a medal. Isn't that what Americans do?" he asked, looking back at her. "Pin people with medals with all that pomp and circumstance? Any excuse to spend taxpayers money on a ceremony, I suppose." He raised his eyebrows, searching her. He'd flaunted his fairly extensive knowledge of Earth workings to show that this wasn't his first time on this planet because, honestly, this was just starting to get annoying now.

She twirled the psychic paper in her hands in a practiced move.

"Is your partner the same species of alien as you?"

"Oh, but I thought you had all sorts of fancy pieces of kit to tell you all about my biology- sorry, fancy pieces of _technology_ , so used to British lingo because I liaison with MI-6, constantly-"

He raised his eyebrows, sitting back in his seat.

"Oh," he said, quietly. "Oh, you've absolutely no intention of even calling MI-6, do you?" he snarled. "You're going to get your questions answered and then study us like we're lab rats. I do have quite a lot of Earth knowledge though, enough to support the theory that I actually do liaison with MI-6, so you'll probably get your information before you just wipe our minds and send us on our way, none the wiser. Probably won't even remember the crash. Ooh, that's very clever. Or, it would be, if I were just any old alien, but I'm not. I've had dealings with humans for a very long time, and breaking out of a facility like this'll be more than a breeze. So," he said, leaning forward, "why don't you just make it easy on all of us, and make that call to MI-6, so at the very least you can do yourself the favor of using the 'proper' channels to release us, no muss, no fuss?"

"You want to be released?" she asked him. He leaned back in his chair, though he was the one searching her disinterestedly this time. Behind the mask that she had constructed, he saw that she did look a little unnerved by his expression because it wasn't just disinterest. It was also a lowkey threat that if they weren't released, what happened next was on her. "Answer my questions, and I'll happily do that."

His eyes narrowed at her. "Have you not been listening?" he asked, leaning forward once more. "I'm telling you now that I have absolutely no intention of answering any questions. Well, any _more_ questions. You've got one more chance to make that phone call to MI-6, or whatever happens next is on you."

She raised a pristine eyebrow. "I'm not sure what type of humans you've been working with, but I won't be so easily cowed. I'm giving you a chance to answer my questions, or I will throw you and your partner down a deep dark hole, never to see the light of day again. Your choice."

He scrutinized her for a long second before he let her win the staring contest, leaning back in his seat. "Fine," he said, smiling overly cheerful. "Deep dark hole it is, then. Get to it."

Both of them were surprised when the door opened behind the ever illustrious agent. They were probably equally as surprised when they both saw Anna standing in the doorway.

" _No_ , I thought, it's the _Doctor_ , he won't still be _detained_ , he'll have gotten _out_ by now, there's _no way_ he's actually- and yet, here you are- are you still _handcuffed_? Seriously?"

"Oh, what, these?" he asked, and he drew his hands back so that they were free, out in front of him as he wiggled his fingers. "Nah, got out of those _ages_ ago. Really low quality for the CIA, but _then again_ , you know what they say about American craftsmanship."

He shrugged. The woman in front of him had backed herself into a corner, radioing for backup as she pointed her gun at both of them.

"Hands where I can see them!" she ordered Anna.

Anna pointed at herself. "Who, me?" she asked. "There's two of us in here, so-"

Both of them were surprised when the agent got two shots off. "Anna!" he shouted, jumping up as her back slammed into the door. She pointed her gun at him next, and he froze where he was, his hands still partially out and in front of him, but he was breathing hard, agitated. "So like an American _isn't it_ ," he snarled. "Shoot at the first thing that _breathes_."

Both of them were once again surprised when Anna was laughing.

"She-she shot me, she _actually_ shot me, I didn't-I didn't think she actually would," she said.

It was the first time that he noticed a person standing behind her, their emotions tucked behind a mask, though there was confusion and a little more than fear. He was dressed like all the other CIA agents, though he hadn't yet intervened, and that was the main reason he was frowning at him instead of asking questions.

When Anna spoke, he looked down at her incredulously. "Seriously? She's an _American_ and she works for the _government_ , what did you-"

" _Hands where I can see them_!" she insisted, pointing the gun at Anna.

"All right, all right, hold on, there's no need for this, okay, let's just-"

"No, Doctor, it's fine," she said, as she stood. "Bit slow on the uptake, but I've got precautions now. Point being, I promised this one a lift home. Is that okay?"

He looked at her bewildered, glancing between her and the woman who still had a gun pointed at her.

"Oh, for the love of-"

In the next instant, they were all standing in the Tardis console room. His whole body sagged in relief and he moved to Anna, quickly ripping open her shirt to inspect the wound. Apparently, she _was_ slow, because she didn't even get a chance to object before he'd done so.

"Oi!" she said. "We've company!"

"But how-"

"Yeah, bit not important, that," she said. " _Ow_."

He was poking and prodding at the _two_ gun shots that were located near her shoulder, and he looked at her, irritated. "You're lucky she's a terrible shot. What, did you _want_ to die twice in- bloody hell, the psychic!" he hissed, satisfied that her wounds seemed to be closing, though irritation was still flowing through him. He quickly threw his jacket over her, conscious that they did have company and he was suddenly feeling fairly territorial. He led her by her shoulders to sit in the jumpseat, as far away from the newcomer as he physically could.

"What happened to the psychic?" she asked, as he sat her down.

"That agent has it."

She frowned, glancing back at the man who's purpose she still hadn't explained. "Who, ReBair?" she asked.

"No, the-the other one, ReBair? Bit of a strange name for a CIA agent," he pointed out. "Speaking of, why've you brought him onboard? Follow up question, can you grab the psychic for- ta, now, what's he doing here?"

"ReBair, the Doctor, Doctor, ReBair. He crash landed not too long ago and hid himself in the CIA so he could eventually cobble together a ship from broken bits of other crashed ships. Thought he'd hit the motherload with this crashed ship, though it's decimated to bits from what I can tell." She finally paused, frowning as she looked down at the grating. "I'm not even sure what happened, really?"

"We can get into that after we drop ReBair back home. Where're you from?"

"But I don't understand, you didn't have a teleport," ReBair said. "I scanned you for all tech, and you didn't-"

"Yeah, that's definitely not important," he said, jumping up. "Point is, here you are, on my ship," he looked at ReBair, "about to give me intergalactic coordinates so I can drop you off back at home."

Either ReBair was too in shock to question it or he'd been stranded away from home for so long that he didn't want to question a gift horse, as it were. When it was done, ReBair was home and the Doctor and Anna were finally alone.

"So what-"

He didn't let her finish that sentence. He simply started to kiss her, pushing her up against the railing as a desperate need filled him to know that she actually _was_ alive and whole and _okay_.

#####

He didn't know when she'd cleaned off the blood from her chest, but he didn't particularly care. All that he cared about was that Anna was laying in bed, safe in his arms. He drew slow circles on her shoulder, reaffirming that she was alive, now more easily able to push the image of her charred body from his mind now that her healed body was within reach.

"So we still have no idea what they were doing," Anna pointed out, and he let the sigh deflate his chest, kissing the top of her head.

"No," he said, quietly, staring at the ceiling. "But, there are a lot of things you can use emotion for, especially human emotion."

"You know what we need to do now, though."

He closed his eyes, almost in resignation. "Yeah," he said. They needed to head back, scour the theater for any and all tech. Hopefully she'd let them talk to the manager this time instead of forcing them to do this via the cover of night. Still, the technology might give them some clue as to why they'd done this, who they actually were, and if 'they' was part of a larger organization that was planning on continuing the work their worker bees had started.

"All right, come on."

"What? No, five more minutes," he said, keeping her caged in his arms.

"Doctor-"

"Five more minutes won't kill anyone, because I've got a time machine and you've got the ability to travel us back those extra five minutes if all else fails. Please."

She searched his eyes to see the desperation that he was trying to hide. After a moment, she nodded, gently caressing his cheek. "Okay," she said. "Five more minutes."

They laid in bed together, even as he knew five more minutes would never be enough.

Anna could come back from anything. That was true. It was why he'd never tell her the horror and terror he felt on the rare occasion that he had to witness her prone and broken (and in this case, burnt to a crisp) body at the fact that he was terrified this would be the time her death stuck.

He'd been right in saying that five minutes wasn't enough. Despite this, he allowed Anna to get up when the time came.

They had work to do.

#####

Getting back to the theater was easy enough. They'd parked the Tardis a few miles away in case anymore CIA types were hanging about, keen to get their hands on the Tardis. By his calculations, he'd landed the ship somewhere between the New Mexico border and El Paso, but that didn't mean word hadn't gotten out of where the ship had initially been spotted.

After that was done, Anna teleported them into the theater itself, putting a high level perception filter on them both. Neither of them would be spotted, and it was even better because they wouldn't _have_ to talk to the manager. They could slip in and slip out, no muss, no fuss. Being in a relationship with an all powerful being had it's perks. Well, besides being _in_ a relationship with the all powerful being.

He wasn't thinking too thoroughly about this, especially when he saw that the theater itself was empty. Maybe it had been evacuated. It was likely that the area surrounding where the ship had been spotted would be cordoned off for miles while the government workers ran tests and the like to get some semblance of answer.

They likely wouldn't, but good on them for trying.

As soon as he saw that the theater was empty, he dropped into a working mindset. He began to run through all the scans they were about to perform and all the things they'd have to do to disable the tech itself.

It was because he was in this mindset that he didn't immediately react when Anna was teleported away.

It wasn't her teleporting away. Her teleporting away always had a certain quality of 'blink and she's teleported'. This was more showy, with an opaque shimmer around her before she winked out of existence.

When he realized what had happened, he stopped where he was, looking around. "Anna?" he asked, on the off chance that she'd immediately teleported back.

When she hadn't, he sighed, dropping his head.

"Seriously?" he asked, looking up at the empty air.

The empty air didn't respond.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, this was not the chapter that I had planned to happen right now. I had to rearrange some stuff around, so this is what ended up getting put in it's place.  
> As I said, I'm not a science person so the technology that was mentioned here was made up by me. As far as I know. Also, I didn't get into technical fancy terms because, hey, if the Eleventh Doctor can get away with, 'It's like two ships parking in the same parking spot… except it's nothing like that,' then I feel like my meager explanation can also slide.


	17. Young Anna Monroe Part II

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter turned into something I had no intention of it being, and um. All I can say is... Yeah, no, I have no words. Because. Yeah. Um.  
> TW: Mild mentions of gore. She dies, but it's really sudden, but still TW for that.  
> Chapter title still based on, "Young Goodman Brown."  
> I still don't own Doctor Who.

Apparently, Anna was in a cave. Apparently, Anna wasn't the only one. As she looked around, she saw other people chained up against the cave wall in a similar fashion.

There was only one other one that was awake, and she was panicking.

"Where-where am I? What's hap-happening? How'd-How'd I end up here?"

"Woah, woah, hey," she said, and the woman startled as she looked over at her. "It's okay. It's all right. Can you tell me-"

"Where-where are we?" she asked, readjusting in the chains. She had mousy brown hair and glasses that had somehow survived whatever had been done to bring them there.

"A cave," she said, looking around once more. "A cave with," she quickly counted, "six other people. But why eight? Is that important? Oh, hold on!" she said, and she quickly teleported all other six people out, back to where they'd come from, before making it so that they were teleport proof. "Okay, great, now what?" she asked herself, looking around. "I mean," she started, "I guess I could-"

One of the sides of the cave started to slide up, a mechanical whir accompanying it. It was moments after that that a colorless blur came barreling in, roaring.

"Okay, the-"

She got a single glimpse at it. It appeared to be made of some kind of quartz, it's skin definitely not humanoid, though it's shape matched it. It's eyes, though… There was rage in those eyes, and a hunger it would never be able to quench.

She watched as it smashed it's arm into her abdomen. Everything either broke or burst on impact, but either way, she was saved from a painful death when she died nearly instantly.

#####

She'd never tell the Doctor about what state she woke up in, but to say it wasn't pretty was the understatement of the century. She'd also never tell him about the pain she felt when she finally came to.

But, she would never forget either of them.

Lying on the cave floor, looking at the creature who was chewing on something- Oh goodness, was that-

She managed to put it together, through her haze of pain, exactly what it was, and she quickly imagined herself put back together before she imagined herself teleported out to the control room of whatever this place was. There had been a mechanical whirring when the cave wall had slid up, and there was also chains, as well as people that had been teleported to the cave itself. Unless this was a _God Complex_ situation, there was a man behind the curtain (a la _Wizard of Oz)_ , and she fully intended to find out who they were and why the hell they'd felt the need to feed her and seven other people to the creature who'd had a hunger that only hands could satisfy.

#####

By the time she'd teleported back to the theater, the situation had been sorted. There was a group called the Parsets that were kidnapping clever females to be fed to the creature, which they'd called a Tilan. How they found said clever females was a bit complicated, but basically, they'd isolated it to an energy signature (which was actually insanely clever) that could be found via a scan, which they set for most of the known universe. Apparently, they thought their studies were worth more than how the females they'd kidnapped could contribute to the respective societies they'd been kidnapped from.

The Tilan, they'd said, was what they'd been studying. They'd found it in an isolated cave on a distant planet far from their home world, and the only sustenance they'd been able to feed it was clever people.

Of course, they'd only told her this because they'd seen her literally come back to life and they were pretty sure that she was some kind of vengeful spirit come to collect, but that was of little consequence. The point was, she'd sent them to the Shadow Proclamation, lab and all, so that they could be locked up for however long something like this was deemed appropriate. The Tilan she sent back to live with it's own kind, no longer a lab rat to be studied or fed innocent people.

She'd meant to teleport back to the theater a second after she'd been teleported out, but she was already starting to run lower on energy. The sum total of what she'd done today included: A sound bubble, bringing Troy the usher back to life as well as teleporting him back from the ship itself, healing from being literally burnt to a crisp, finding out that Agent Smith was actually an alien and then turning off the cameras so she could converse with him discreetly about him being an alien, healed two gunshots wounds (thanks to Agent McEagertofirestein), teleporting three people back to the Tardis, teleported herself and the Doctor back to the theater, came back to life again, teleporting to said control room, teleporting all of them and their lab to the Shadow Proclamation, teleporting the Tilan to it's home world, then teleporting herself back to the theater.

It was any wonder she'd even found the right planet, let alone the right minute.

Still, the Doctor had only taken a couple of steps from the position she assumed he'd been in, so that was a start, at least.

"-doesn't even have the decency to _announce_ themselves before they just up and _kidnap my girlfriend,_ I mean, _honestly_ , who-"

It appeared he was sonicking the air and she held back the laugh. It wasn't hard when he called her his girlfriend.

"Girlfriend?" she asked.

He whirled around. "Anna!" he said, his eyes wide, though she could see from the light pouring into the theater from the outside and the glow of the sonic that there was relief in his eyes. "You're all right! What happened, where'd you-"

She couldn't understand why his face dropped, or why his eyebrows shot up as his eyes raked over her.

"You're covered in… blood."

He looked up at her face, his eyebrows still raised.

"Wha- Oh, damn it," she said, looking down before she let out a breath. She put her hand over her face. "Look, obviously I'm _fine_ , and we need to-"

"So it is yours, then?"

She frowned, looking up at him. "No," she said, sarcastically. "It's the Dalai Lama's, of course it's my blood, who-"

Her eyebrows shot up in realization.

"You… you don't think that I… hurt someone, do-"

"What?" he asked, his face transforming for a moment to say that was the most ridiculous thing he'd ever heard. "Nah, come off it, course I don't. I just thought, you know, maybe you'd… someone had been traumatically injured and you'd healed them, and that was their blood you were covered in." He raised his eyebrows once more. "Would asking about what happened be pointless, or…?"

She rolled her eyes before she shook her head, stalking off through the starting to darken theater. "I mean, it wouldn't be pointless per say-"

She heard the thump before she heard the Doctor open his mouth and start to scream.

It was more than just him screaming. It was like someone was-

Tearing him apart? Limb from limb?

"Oh, shit," she cursed, before she turned back around, to find that he was writhing on the floor before he was stiff as a board, his eyes open wide in pain. He was gasping for air, trying so hard just to _breathe_ , _no_ -

She didn't know what else to do. In her panic, she simply put him to sleep.

She hadn't even thought about the fact that he would be able to feel the pain of her dying through whatever link it was that they shared. She may have teleported back thirty seconds after she'd been teleported away, but that didn't mean that he wouldn't feel the pain of what she'd been feeling at the time.

She cursed again, running a gentle hand through his hair, even as her center throbbed uncomfortably. It was usually an indication that she'd used too much of her energy and her body was letting her know that she needed to replenish, but she wasn't focused on that. She was focused on making sure that he stayed asleep through this whole awful experience, so he wouldn't feel the pain that she had felt.

He still twitched restlessly in his sleep, making small whimpering sounds, and she closed her eyes, wishing that this would just hurry the hell up. How long had it taken the Tilan to rip her apart, anyway? How long had it taken to put herself back together? Ten minutes? An hour?

She tried to think of a way to speed this up, to make it so that she didn't even have to put him to sleep, but she'd no idea how. She'd manipulated the connection before, put in a safeguard so that when she died, it didn't, merely pausing until she came back to life. She hadn't even thought about safeguarding it against the pain that she felt when she died, which, in hindsight, was stupid.

Well, no, he was a time lord, which automatically meant more pain resistance for some reason. Besides which, shouldn't the connection automatically block pain of this magnitude? Why shouldn't it?

She bit her lip, her ankles crossed as she continued to gently rub a hand through his hair, throwing him comfort all the while, even as he continued to twitch and occasionally whimper all the while.

#####

It could've been a literal eternity later, though the digital clock on the wall read that it had actually been about half an hour since the first scream had rung out through the air. Just to be on the safe side, she allowed him to come out of it at forty five minutes. She did so slowly, and as she did, she felt the urgency build up through the connection until it finally exploded out of him.

He stood straight up, startling her as she watched him from her position on the floor. He looked around wildly, his eyes seeing something that wasn't making sense to him. Desperation flooded him and he shook his head.

" _Anna_!" he practically screamed her name.

"Woah, Doctor, I'm here, I'm right here," she said, standing.

He barely even registered that she was there, his eyes wild as he looked down upon her, before he surprised her when he picked her up, bridal style.

"Woah-"

"Tardis, now," he said, through gritted teeth.

She'd never felt him more fiercely protective than he did in that moment. It shot through him with each of his individual hearts beats, building until she was afraid it might burst out of him.

It was because of this that she started to simply do as he asked, before she remembered the tech.

"Doctor, I can't," she started. She was sure that she wouldn't be able to teleport them back to the theater to get the tech if she teleported them to the Tardis now.

Imagine her utter shock when, despite this, they were suddenly standing in the Tardis.

"Ta," he said, as an almost afterthought, but he was already running them to the medbay.

But. Um. But. Wh. What?

She didn't understand what had happened, had no clue.

Except she did.

Dread rolled through her when she realized that maybe he'd used his 'in case of emergency' that he'd gotten from her. So, it took no energy to teleport them to the Tardis.

Okay. Okay. No, this was-this was fine. This was fine, she thought, as he ran them to the medbay, because, hey, let's be honest, he was in such a frenzied state, he hadn't even noticed that she'd said that she couldn't, so, so yeah, yeah, this was, this was absolutely fine. This was so fine. There was definitely no need to panic about this. At all. Even a little.

It didn't help her own panic that the Doctor _was_ in such a frenzied state. They practically reached the medbay in five seconds flat, and it wasn't long after that that he was once again taking hold of her shirt, this time the corner by her left hip, and simply ripping it open.

"Doctor-"

She didn't object further when he knelt down next to her, deftly running his hands over the damage that had long since healed. She let out a frustrated breath, but it quickly turned to concern when he pushed his forehead against the bare skin of her hip, wrapping his arms around her, relief rolling through him.

His hearts were pounding so hard that she could actually feel it through his suit against her thigh, and she ran her hand gently through his hair.

"Doctor, I'm okay," she whispered to him. He shook his head, clutching onto her tighter, and it was a moment later that she realized his shoulders were shaking with sobs. "Doctor," she tried again. "Doctor, I'm okay. I'm okay."

She managed to gently remove his arms from around her, though the spots where he'd held onto her would no doubt be sporting bruises soon enough with how tightly he'd grabbed onto her. She didn't even remove his arms, really. He just allowed her to slide her body down, until his arms were clung around her shoulder blades with the same ferocity. He was still shaking, though his sobs had subsided.

"Doctor," she said, quietly.

He finally took his face off of her shoulder, and she'd never know how she realized it was probably because the blood was still caking her clothes (and now that he'd come back to his senses, having his nose buried in it was likely like tasting it, which was gross but also true with how his senses worked). A new determination had his face set and, with shaking hands, he ripped open her shirt at the arm, though there was no sleeve to speak of. He ran a hand over the bare skin there, performing a medical examination of sorts, and she let him because it felt cruel not to. He started to pull at her arm before his eyes widened. A wild panic went through him and he shook his head vehemently, launching himself at her before he held onto her as tightly as he possibly could without hurting her further.

He was once again gasping, but it was for a different reason now. "I'm sorry, Anna, I'm so sorry, I'm so, so sorry, Anna, I'm _sorry_ , I'm so, _so sorry_ -"

He got the words out so quickly that she couldn't speak until he'd gotten all of them out.

"Doctor, Doctor, hey, it's not-"

Sobs wracked his body as he pushed his head into her shoulder.

It clicked for her, then.

He hadn't just felt her pain. No, the only way that he could've known that was if he'd seen it firsthand. It was entirely possible that because the connection had only been paused, he'd watched her body being ripped apart, limb from limb, and not been able to do a single thing about it. Worse, he'd had to watch what even she hadn't seen, because she'd died with her eyes open.

"Doctor, look at me, yes, look at me, look-"

She managed to detangle herself from him before she stood, taking her clothes off completely so that he could inspect every part of her to reaffirm that she was whole and there and _alive_.

He did, going into a strange sort of work mode as he examined every inch of her. He had a purpose about him, now, and that probably helped. This was more familiar to him. He was the Doctor, and he had a job to do.

It could've easily been an hour later that he finally stopped running his hands expertly over the places that the Tilan had ripped her limbs off, not even satisfied when the medbay scans told him that she was clean and healthy at least twelve times. He wasn't satisfied until he'd finally gotten over his fear of barely pulling her arm away from her shoulder to find that it wasn't coming off. He'd started to do the same to other body parts before he finally landed on the forearm that the Tilan had tried to make a meal of. He'd run his hand over the skin there, over and over, barely shaking his head before he brought it to his mouth, placing his lips on her forearm and closing his eyes.

They stood like that for an uncomfortable amount of time, and she barely shifted.

He finally snapped out of it, sniffing before he cleared his throat. Wordlessly, he took his jacket off before he wrapped it around her shoulders, encasing her in it. It swallowed her up, and he led her to a bed before he sat her down on it.

He knelt down in front of it next, grabbing her hands in his, though the shaking hadn't completely subsided.

"I need you to do something for me, and I know that you won't want to, but I'm asking you, Anna, please. For me. I need you to do this."

She searched his eyes. "Do what?" she asked, quietly, after a moment.

He opened his mouth to speak before frustration rolled through his eyes and he looked down and away.

"And I know that you won't want to, that it'll be against every instinct that you have, but I need you to do this for me. Anna, for me. Please."

She frowned. "Doctor, what-"

"I need you to make it so that you can't be randomly teleported away anymore."

He'd spit out the words like he couldn't get them out fast enough, but there was frustration, his teeth gritted as he looked down at the floor.

"Please," he tried.

She raised her eyebrows, barely licking her lips. It had to have been horrible for him to see what he'd seen, yes. She wasn't discounting his pain in any way. But for him to ask her to do this?

"Doctor, I'm-I'm so sorry-"

His eyes squeezed shut before he shook his head. "Anna, no, just-just consider it, for a moment, right, because you've-you've got your time sense- _feelings_ , you've got your feelings and surely, if-if it's life threatening-"

"Doctor-"

"Anna, just-just, please, just for me, please, do this, for me, I have-I have never asked anything of you, not ever, but I am asking you to do this. Please," he said, finally looking up at her. "Please. For me. Do this, for me. Please. Because I can't-" he shook his head, his eyes haunted. "I can't see you go through that again. I can't, I just, I can't." he shook his head, pressing his chest against her knees so that she could feel his words vibrating through her legs. "Please," he said, searching her eyes. "For me. Please."

She hesitated in speaking before she diverted, gently taking his face into her hands. He leaned into the touch like a dying man to water, squeezing his eyes shut as he reached up, clasping her hand in his.

"Please," he tried again.

How could this feel cruel, she wondered? How could it feel so cruel to do this to him, to tell him that she couldn't?

But it did. It felt so cruel and so wrong to not give him the one thing he'd asked of her (and actually wanted, not just asked for out of anger).

But, she had to deny him this. No matter how much she didn't want to.

She was a being of power, and she didn't have the luxury of granting personal favors of this magnitude. Not even for time lords she loved.

"Doctor, I would," she told him. "I would, a million times over-"

"Then do," he said, looking up at her. "Just do it. You can. You can do anything, so why- just do this, you _can_ do this, and _don't_ tell me that you can't," he stood up and his words were coming at a rapid fire pace. "You ended the _Time War_ Anna and you're telling me that you can't make it so that you can't be _teleported_ _out_ against your _will_? Hm?" he raised his eyebrows, searching her.

She raised her own eyebrows.

"Yes," she told him, quietly.

He bit out a laugh, but it was humorless.

"No, no, no," he told her, looking over at her. He'd run his hands through his hair, but he turned back to look at her, fire in his eyes. "No, you- you're telling me that you _won't_. That's what you're telling me, that you _won't_ do it, and why?" he asked. " _Why?_ "

"Because if I hadn't've been able to be teleported out against my will, a _lot_ more people would be _dead_ because I _wouldn't have known_. Those people _needed_ me-"

"I need you, Anna!" he shouted at her, and she sat back on the bed, raising her eyebrows.

He was wild. Everything about him was loud. He was desperate. There was no part of her that didn't believe that he did need her.

"I just- I just-" he shook his head, running a hand through his hair as he turned away, a hand on his hip. He shook his head, but he wasn't looking at her. "I don't know how it happened," he said, his voice strangely hoarse. "I just know that losing you would- it would tear me apart until there is nothing left." He shook his head, looking at her. "And I'm sorry for that. Because I know what it's like to have the responsibility of the universe on your shoulders. And I'm not asking you to give that up," he told her, starting towards her. "I'm just asking you to find a way for this to never happen again. Just make it so that people can't teleport you against your will. Anna. Please." He got on his knees in front of her, once again grabbing her hands in his as he looked up at her with desperation in his eyes. "Please. For me. I'll never ask for anything again from you, please, just do this one thing. For me. _Please._ "

She was at a complete loss for words. She'd never seen him like this. He was the Doctor. He didn't need anything or anybody. He could survive anything, and had. Yet, he was saying that he wouldn't survive it if he lost her.

Emotions were running high right now. Later, he'd come to his senses and realize that he didn't need her as much as he thought he did, that losing her wouldn't leave him this broken thing that he thought it would. In another version of events, he'd lost his whole planet, his whole race, he'd been the one to pull the trigger (or he thought that he had) and he survived. Losing one person wouldn't tear him apart so completely that he'd never be whole again.

Even so, how could she deny him this? Looking into his eyes, seeing the way that the thought of losing her made him so terrified, how could she possibly say no to the time lord in front of her?

She had to. She was a being of power, but she was more than that. She had promised herself she'd always be the right kind of being of power, the kind who remembered that every single being that had ever existed deserved a chance at a life. If she did this, she would be risking people's lives, and that wasn't something she could allow herself to do. Even if it broke her heart and hurt the time lord in front of her in the process.

So, she leaned down, shaking her head. "You won't lose me," she told him, quietly, and he searched her eyes, tears unshed in his. "I swear to you, no matter what happens, I will always find my way back to you."

The spark of realization was nothing compared to the hurt that ricocheted through his chest. She thought it might've hurt him less if she'd physically injured him to the point of regeneration.

His mouth opened before he searched her. "You're saying no," he said, and the words were so quiet she almost didn't hear him. But, the hurt on his face was loud and clear, so much louder than his words had ever been.

But, she shook her head, now easily able to extract her hands from his so that she could grasp his face in her hands.

"I'm telling you that you won't _ever_ lose me," she told him. "That even if-" she shook her head. "I promise you, you will _never_ have to go through the pain of losing me. I will never force you to know what it's like to live your life without me, for as long as you'll have me.

"I love you, to the ends of the universe- to the ends of the _multi-verse_ and back. I promise you, I swear, I will always, always find my way back to you. I promise." She nodded, gently swiping at the tears that finally fell down his cheeks. "I promise."

He squeezed his eyes shut, pressing his face into her knees. There was an ache and a longing that she'd never felt before coming from him, one that he couldn't let himself feel.

This was the price of immortality. It was watching loved ones age and wither and die, and having the only thing that was left of them be the ache they left behind.

It stole her breath and weakened her knees and the only thing she wanted to do was say take her answer back and tell him that she would do this for him, because he did so much and never asked for anything in return.

But, it was something she couldn't give him. This was about more than the time lord, and a part of him knew that, no matter how small and shouted down it might've been.

He finally picked his head up again, resting his chin on her knee as he stared at her left hip. He came to a decision, though what it was, she didn't know. Not until he stood up, leaning down over her. She looked up into his eyes, searching them.

He kissed her.

For a long moment, he kissed her, lovingly and passionately and with longing. It wasn't just kissing, though. He was conveying everything he couldn't say into his actions.

 _I understand_ , it said. _I know you can't do this for me, and I still love you_.

He pushed her back onto the bed, putting a leg on either side of her and grabbing her face in his hands as he continued to kiss her.

_I will love you, long after you no longer want me, long after civilizations have turned to dust and ash and everything else has faded away._

_I love you, Anna Monroe, and I will love you forever_.

There were a thousand things she wanted to say to him, a thousand things that she'd never be able to.

But, there was one thing she'd never tell him, and it was the feeling she'd got when she'd told him that he would never know the pain of losing her.

It was a feeling that said those words were wrong.

No matter how desperately she tried to get lost in him, she couldn't completely escape the realization that one day, he _would_ lose her, and there would be nothing she could do to stop it.

The only thing she could was hope that when it did happen, she could keep her promise of getting back to him.

Well that and hold onto the hope that he wouldn't willingly lose himself in the sea of his grief before she could.


	18. 42

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just a quick note: This next section leading up to the end of this story will be heavy on the episodes. I'll do as I have been doing and steer clear of quoting episodes completely, so hopefully you guys still enjoy.  
> That being said: As it stands, there's about nineteen chapters left. Knowing me and how bad I've been at keeping up with what I've planned for this story, that could easily turn into more or less, but that's where I'm at right now. This will be a multi-story saga featuring Anna and the NuWho Doctors (which sounds like a great band name, btw?), so I'll keep you posted on future stories.  
> I still don't own Doctor Who.

"A distress signal, you said?"

She only asked because there was a voice blaring over the loudspeaker announcing that there was an automated distress signal transmitting, and she was feeling particularly cheeky at the moment. His flying had been less than ideal when he'd locked onto it, and some part of her knew that she could do a better job, even if she'd never outright tell him.

There weren't many things he took actual pride in. Being able to fly the Tardis better than anybody else was one of them (and it actually made how much he disliked River in the beginning (in the television show anyway) make sense. At least, partially, anyway. In the show, River'd also made a comment about how he'd been busy the day she'd learned to fly the Tardis, and while most people wouldn't have caught on to what he thought she was implying, Anna did. Because, in the show, he'd been the last. When River had made that comment, there hadn't been anybody else to teach her how to fly the Tardis. So, either River was implying that there were other time lords out there, or she was throwing the fact that he was the last back in his face with a joke. Either way, he was running from his future, because it either meant there were other time lords out there and he'd have to face what he'd done, or he would one day be married to a woman who would willingly make a flippant joke about him being the last of his species (which begged the question of what else she was willing to do). It all made sense, really).

Anna also didn't make a comment about his flying because of how he was feeling lately. It was weird to describe it, but ever since what she'd fondly dubbed as "The Texas Experience", he'd been a lot softer. It wasn't more gentle, it wasn't kinder. It was like he'd accepted that she was there in his life and she wasn't disappearing anytime soon.

The reminder of the painful loss he would suffer was still in the back of her mind, even if she pushed it as far away from herself as she could. From what she could feel, that was still ages away. There was no use dwelling in the years to come when they had the wonderful, beautiful now to focus on.

Right now, they appeared to be in some kind of ship, and by goodness, it was hot in here.

"What do you think?" she asked, fanning herself. "Engines failing?"

"Why'd you say that?"

She shrugged, looking around. "Because the A/C appears to have given out. Engines need to cool down, so if the cooling has failed _this badly,_ the engines aren't far behind."

" _Or,_ " he pointed out, examining the equipment. "Maybe they don't have thermodynamic shielding and the heat of wherever we are is seeping into the ship itself."

She raised her eyebrows. "Bet a tenner?"

"Against you?" he asked, before he snorted. "Knowing my luck you're only saying that because you've got a feeling it's the engines and you're just saying it's the A/C to sound impressive. So, no, Anna, I won't be betting a tenner."

"Fifteen quid."

"I'm not making a bet with you," he told her.

She moved to the door at the far end. "Well, _if you can't stand the heat_." She put on a wide smile and he smirked, leaning against the doorway.

"I see what you did there."

"I know, clever, right?"

"Meh," he said. "Punny, maybe. I don't know I'd go so far as to say clever, though."

He opened the door.

"You are entirely too rude," she told him, as they walked out.

"Well, _if you can't stand the heat_ ," he parroted back to her.

She stuck her tongue out at him and he just looked down at her amused.

"Oi, you two!"

Their heads both snapped over to see the three people running over to them. She frowned, trying to remember how she knew them. It quickly came to her.

Her back to basics package had included lines and names of television show characters. Now that she was back up to full power, she recognized them on sight. It was Riley, McDonnell and Scannell.

"Oh, okay," she said, almost dancing in place, she was that pleased. She raised her eyebrows, biting her bottom lip before she smiled, looking at the Doctor. "Good day."

The Doctor, in the meanwhile, looked at her like she were insane, even if his eyes flicked down distracted to her bottom lip all the while.

#####

"Blimey, do you always leave things in such a mess?"

They were currently looking at the thoroughly wrecked engineering, wires coming out of ports and pieces of metal literally ripped off. It looked a bit like a toddler had found a bunch of cooked spaghetti and stuffed it into the cabinets. Except it was so much worse than that.

The ship was in pain.

She could feel it, down to her bones. The ship was in pain, in agony, and it wanted them to suffer for it.

Oh, no, hang about. That wasn't the ship. That was the sun. She'd grown so used to feeling the Tardis that she'd forgotten for a moment that not all ships were alive.

She smiled at the realization that she could feel the sun… before she realized that she could feel the sun being in pain, and she wiped the smile off of her face. The sun was in pain. That was nothing to smile about. Even if it was cool that she could feel it.

"Hm," she said, quietly, in thought, but the Doctor paid her little mind as the action happened.

She closed her eyes and tried to focus on feeling the sun, tried to see if maybe she could do something, communicate with it or something. This was a pretty easy one to resolve, and the only thing that she wouldn't be able to do was save Korwin, but she could easily throw him in the alternate dimension that she'd set up. She wanted to see if she could talk to the sun, reassure it that this would be over soon, that it would get it's heart back and all would be well.

It was just anger. Anger and confusion and hurt and anger. She wouldn't be able to talk to the sun, not even to reassure it. It hadn't even noticed that she was feeling it out, and to be honest, who wanted to hold a conversation when the equivalent of a limb had been torn away?

"And you're still using energy scoops for fusion?" the Doctor asked. "Hasn't that been outlawed yet?"

_Oop, that's my cue._

"We're due to upgrade next docking. Scannell, engine-"

"You lying liar."

McConnell looked at her like she were insane, though the Doctor glanced over at her curiously, glancing between the two of them. "I'm sorry?"

"Well, you should be, but that's not my next point, my next point is that you are lying, because you're not due for an upgrade next docking."

"I have no idea-"

"No, I mean, I get it," she reassured her. "You're trying to make an honest living and people bump up the price of things and force you to upgrade for 'safety'-"

"What are you even-"

"-or because some parts manufacturer bribed the local star systems government to make their part the standard and it's all just one big inconvenience. So, no, I don't think you're a bad person. I do think that you've- oh shit."

It hadn't hit her, until then. The only reason this whole catastrophe had even occurred was because they hadn't upgraded one part. Four people would've died because of it.

Now, McDonnell would lose her husband, and all for the equivalent of not upgrading her vehicle from diesel to electric.

She opened and closed her mouth as she stared at McDonnell, genuinely speechless. McDonnell, on the other hand, was still looking at her like she were insane.

"I have no idea what you're on about, and the fact that you're calling me a liar, on my own _ship_ -"

"Usually, she isn't wrong, Anna, what's them not upgrading from fusion scoops have to do with what's happening now?"

She raised her eyebrows, looking at McDonnell. She couldn't save Korwin. He and McDonnell would've had a child that was never supposed to be born, creating ripples in the universe that would've been insurmountable, even for her.

She finally managed to speak. "You're not a bad person," she said, quietly, fully believing it. Yes, her and her husband hadn't scanned for life, but they hadn't intentionally set out to hurt the sun. She and her husband hadn't intentionally set out to hurt anybody. "So it's unfair that this bad thing is about to happen."

That did it. McDonnell was now on the defensive, her hackles rising. "What are you talking about? Are you threatening me?"

But, Anna didn't care. She simply shook her head. "No, I'm not. I'm telling you that I'm sorry. I'll do all that I can to save the people that I can, but I can't save everyone." She shook her head again. "I'm so sorry."

She grabbed the Doctor's hand and took off running with him, running to the front of the ship and passing through walls to do it, the Doctor not even objecting all the while.

Here was the conundrum. She could save Korwin by throwing him into that alternate dimension. Then what? McDonnell was the love of his life, so much so that she threw herself out of the ship for the small chance that, in the afterlife, she would see him again.

If Anna simply threw him into the alternate dimension, Korwin would be alive, but he would be forced to live the rest of his life without the love of his life.

Maybe she could reunite them, after McDonnell had lived her life. She could turn back the clock so that McDonnell was the same age that she had been when he'd last seen her.

But wouldn't that be cruel, too? McDonnell would live and although she would be miserable, she would find some small semblance of happiness with another man and his child. What would Anna be doing, then? She'd find happiness only to have old wounds be reopened by being separated once more from someone she loved and this time, it would be a child she'd grown to call her own.

What was Anna supposed to do here? Just let Korwin die because living life without the love of his life was crueler than if she had just let him die?

Didn't that mean that she was basically saying that life was only worth something because he was in love with someone else? Did that mean _he_ was only worth something because he'd fallen in love and started a life with the woman he'd thought he'd be spending the rest of it with?

An idea shot through her so fiercely that she actually jerked her and the Doctor both to a halt, staring at the still sealed bulkhead door. "I'm a-" she started, before she whooped for joy, jumping up and down. "I'm a bloody _moron!_ " she shouted.

"You're really not," he said, though he was happily confused by the display.

She didn't care. She quickly ran over to him and kissed him, long and hard.

Because why the fuck couldn't she just transport McDonnell _to the alternate dimension_?

She was meant to bloody die in the show anyway, so why the hell couldn't she just teleport her to the alternate dimension where she could be happy with the love of her life?

The other man and his child would be fine without her, since they had been originally anyway.

It meant that her and Korwin could be together and they could share their lives and it would be a happy ending for everybody.

She didn't even bother heading to the front of the ship, quickly pulling away from the Doctor before she threw the fuel particles back into the sun. She ran to a window, quickly pulling the Doctor along with her, and smiled at the trail leading from the ship to the sun.

It was like a thousand fireflies dancing across the backdrop of the stars. She felt herself tearing up when she felt the relief from the sun, a wonderful, huge thing that she couldn't ignore.

 _Thank goodness_ , it was saying, and if it could've been sobbing from the relief of it, it would've.

She felt the wonderment flowing from the Doctor as well.

"What is that?" he asked.

Without turning around, she grabbed his hands so that she could wrap his arms around her waist. He let her, still staring at the sun particles, amazed.

"That, Doctor," she said. "Is a _good fucking day_."

She finally turned around, reaching up and kissing him once more.

#####

It wasn't long before Korwin did 'pass on'. She gave a brief explanation to McDonnell that she'd saved him by bringing him to a place where the sun particles couldn't affect him (which was total bullshit but she wasn't sure she wanted to explain it any other way) before she told her that she could bring her to the same place, so that they could live their happily ever after. Whether or not they had kids, it wouldn't matter in the alternate universe because it wouldn't affect this universe.

The only thing that mattered was that they would happy.

She watched as McDonnell and Korwin walked off into the sunset, some part of her knowing without a shadow of a doubt that they'd live very long and happy lives, never knowing the pain of living without the other.

Her heart swelled with a bittersweet joy at the thought.

#####

"So, what just happened?"

She laughed. They were back in the Tardis and she dove into a quick explanation of it.

"Basically, the sun was alive. They scooped fuel from it and it was angry about that, rightfully so. I knew I could save everybody except for Korwin, but then I thought, well, even if I do throw him into the alternate dimension, he won't be with the love of his life, and then it's all, is there more to life than love, blah, blah, blah, but, I figured out that, because McDonnell was going to die anyway, I could also throw her into the alternate dimension and they could be happy together-"

"Nope, no, hold on, back up," the Doctor said, though he couldn't quite conceal the happiness at the fact that she was practically vibrating with the emotion. "What do you mean, throw Korwin into the alternate dimension? What's that mean? What alternate dimension?"

"You know, the dimension I created so people who are supposed to die can continue to live? I've told you about this, haven't I?" she frowned, looking down at the grating. "Have I?"

"No, no, no, hang on. Hang on. Let me get this straight. You… instead of just letting people die who are, according to the universe, supposed to die, you found a way to let them live out the rest of their lives without consequences to the universe at large by creating an alternate dimension where they _could_ live?"

The sheer volume and ferocity of his emotions made her raise her eyebrows as she looked up at him. He'd started for her, even before she'd had a chance to speak.

"Well, yeah," she said. "Thought-"

She didn't get a chance to finish that sentence before he was on her, once again kissing the living hell out of her.

She made a noise of surprise, but before she was even able to respond, he quickly pulled away. Flustered, she looked up into his eyes.

They held a whole universe of emotion as he spoke.

"Marry me."

It was for about two seconds that she didn't understand the words coming out of his mouth. When she did, a thrill ran through her, even as her eyebrows shot up on her forehead.

Had he really just...

"What?"

Not deterred, he released her before he grabbed her hands, kneeling down in front of her.

"Anna Monroe, despite the fact that you could be gallivanting across the universe and causing total chaos with your many powers, you don't. You choose to be _this_ , a woman who cares _so much_ about the universe and the people in it that you created a whole alternate dimension so that people who were supposed to die won't, and instead, get a second chance at life and happiness and _love_.

"I love you, more than the stars themselves. By asking you this, I am promising you that you are the love of my lives and that will be true for the rest of my lives. Anna Monroe, will you marry me?"

Ecstatic joy flowed through. "Yes!" she exclaimed, tears of joy resting in her eyes. "Of course, absolutely, yes!"

He let out a shout of delight before he hugged her, picking her up and spinning her around in a circle before he set her back down, immediately diving in for a kiss.

It wasn't long after that that she felt him leaning down so that he was grasping her legs before he hoisted her up. She helped him by wrapping her legs around him. He carried her then, down the hallways of the Tardis.

It wasn't long before they reached his room, and there was a moment when he was getting the door open that she thought about what had happened. She'd spared the sun a little pain and saved the lives of the crew members on board. She'd reunited two souls who were supposed to die but instead would get to live out the rest of their days with the person that they loved.

And The Doctor, the love of _her_ life, had proposed and she'd said yes.

As he opened the door, she realized that it was more than the happiest moment of her life. It was the beginning of a new chapter in her life. More than that, it was the beginning of a new chapter in _their_ lives. A grand new adventure for the two of them to share, side by side, happy and in love.

She had so much happiness that she was overflowing with it. It was only increased when she and the Doctor spent the next however long allowing themselves to get so deeply lost in the other, it was hard to tell where one person started and the other one ended.

Because of this, the connection did what it hadn't done; it shared something that the Doctor was gladly willing to give to her, the woman who had changed everything for him.

After all these years, Anna Monroe found out the Doctor's name.


	19. Partners in Planet of the Ood

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I want to make it VERY FREAKING CLEAR that I'm not cutting out Martha entirely. I love Martha. She's, I really don't even have words to describe her. She's just getting put in much later in the story, because she's got a much bigger role to play than she initially did. I'm doing things differently with her than I did with Rose for the simple matter that I like Rose's story and how it played out (and there's a hint there and NO I DIDN'T FORGET ANYTHING I'M SAYING THIS RIGHT NOW even if you don't understand why right at this moment. Don't come at me in a few chapters and say that I forgot it BECAUSE I DIDN'T FORGET IT). So yeah, I liked how Rose's story played out. I didn't like how Martha's story did. There'll be some key differences, and you'll see what I mean when we get there.  
> Also, I keep forgetting to mention that I get the transcripts from the same place that all the other writers do, which is Chakoteya. Those people are my fav, truly, with the patience of a saint to sit through those episodes and transcribe ALL OF THEM. Seriously, it's great.  
> To my AO3 readers: the story is officially caught up! I tend to post daily but barring that, the longest I've ever not posted is two weeks, so that should give you an idea of an update schedule. I want to say a HUGE thank you to everybody who's sat down and read this up to this point, and hope that you will continue to read!  
> I still don't own Doctor Who (shocking, right?)

++Partners in Crime++

She wasn't surprised, per say, that they'd found Donna. It was just a little concerning that they still hadn't found Martha, though she'd asked later about his flippant comment of traveling with people for a trip or two. He'd said no one called Martha had come up, though he'd figured out pretty quickly that the reason she was asking was because Martha was a companion she'd seen on television. He'd done the same brooding routine that he had about Rose, though it wasn't nearly as intense as that one had been.

Now, they were sat with Donna in the Adipose basement, trying to figure out how to thwart Matron Cofelia's plans (well, they were. She had already saved Stacy Campbell by throwing her into the alternate dimension. Now she just had to figure out how to save the good Matron).

"You look older."

She snorted at that, though the Doctor shot them both a look. "Thanks."

"See that you're not on your own, though."

"Nah, got the missus now!" he said, proudly, holding up his left hand and showing it off to Donna before he went back to what he was doing.

"The missues?" she asked. "What- No, you didn't. Tell me you didn't! You got married?"

"I am now the proud husband of one Anna Monroe. Love of my life, moon in my sky-"

"Oh, so aliens can be cheeseballs too! Good to know."

"Oi."

"She is a bit right, though."

"Oi!" He glanced between the two of them before he settled back on the machine. "Fine, enough about me, then, what about you, Donna? Thought you were going to travel the world."

"Easier said than done. It's like I had that one day with you, and I was going to change. I was going to do so much. Then I woke up the next morning, same old life. It's like you were never there. And I tried. I did try. I went to Egypt. I was going to go barefoot and everything. And then it's all bus trips and guidebooks and don't drink the water, and two weeks later you're back home. It's nothing like being with you."

Anna waited for her to say the next line, but she never did. By the time Anna thought to say something, the computer was already speaking about the inducer being activated.

#####

In the end, the day was saved, and so was Matron Cofeila. She would've teleported her to the Shadow Proclamation, but as far as she knew, no one had actually found out about what the Adiposian's had done. Reporting them now would be a ripple affect too wide spread and too far, even for her, and she shuddered at even the thought of it. She ended up using the other option.

Another life for the alternate dimension, then.

It was quiet on the walk back down to the street below. She could feel Donna's dejectedness rolling off of her in waves, her sadness, and she'd no idea why. Why hadn't she asked to come along? Anna was starting to get nervous that she wouldn't, though she'd no idea why she might not. She would, though. Wouldn't she?

In the midst of her thoughts, Penny the reporter came stumbling from the building, still tied to the chair. She managed to stifle her laughter. Barely.

"Oi, you two-! Oh, there's another one of you! All three of you, you're all just mad! Do you hear me? Mad! And I'm gonna report you for… madness!"

She was unable to completely hold the laughter back at that.

"You see, some people just can't take it," Donna said, even though it was tinged with sadness.

"No," the Doctor agreed.

"Definitely not," Anna said, before she turned around, stepping in front of Donna. If she wouldn't ask, Anna would just have to offer. "Which is why I think you should come with us."

A desperate hope rolled off of Donna, though it was marred with confusion. "What?"

"Sorry, what?"

She was surprised when the Doctor spoke, and she barely frowned, though she looked at Donna. "Yeah, well, you handled yourself brilliantly, and from what I heard, he'd be dead without you, so. Like to get to know the woman who saved my husband," and, well, she couldn't help that her heart still leapt in her chest when she said that. It had only been a month. There was no way she could get used to calling the Doctor her 'husband' in that short amount of time. "If that's quite all right with you."

"Yeah, but… you two just got married. Right? You have? Cos you've still got that marriage glow on you, and this one hasn't gained the marriage weight yet-"

"Yet?" he quietly commented.

"-so… Cos I'm telling you now, I have absolutely no intention of being a third wheel."

Oh… Oh, right. Right, duh. Duh. Anna was a moron. Obviously. Okay.

Because, like, why wouldn't she be afraid she'd be the third wheel to the married couple? They were married? Obviously?

"Donna, I can promise you, you will be the exact opposite of a third wheel. You have nothing to worry about. Besides, it'll be fun! Three amigos, three musketeers, you can be the Ted to our Lily and Marshall."

"The who to your what?"

She cleared her throat. "Never mind. Point is, it's totally all right. We'd love to have you."

Donna looked over at the Doctor. "And you? Would you be all right with that? Me cutting in on your honeymoon?"

She expected the Doctor's answer to be an over ecstatic joy at the fact that Donna was _finally_ joining them. What she got was happiness up front, but a hesitance pushed behind his mask.

"Well, you know what they say, happy wife, happy life."

He glanced over at her, and she realized suddenly that he was worried. Why was he so worried?

Donna's joy soon overran that. "Good enough for me!" she said. "Come on! To the Tardis!"

#####

"You are happy, right?"

"What?" she asked, as if it were the most ridiculous thing she'd ever heard. They were lugging Donna's bags to the Tardis, because she'd run off saying that she still had her mum's car keys. Her heart skipped a beat as she thought about the blonde woman she would speak to, but she quickly pushed the thought from her mind. "Yeah, course I am," she told him. "Why would you think differently?"

"I dunno, maybe because you invited someone else to come along without even consulting me first?"

She actually dropped the bag she was holding in surprise, looking up at the Doctor (though luckily it appeared to just be clothes).

"Oh," she said.

"Yeah," he agreed.

"Oh, I… Wow, no, she- she was- and I- No, I am- I am _very, very happy_ ," she told him. "And I'm-I'm so sorry, I didn't even think about how that would- would come across, I just- she was supposed to-supposed to ask and you were- you know, you were supposed to agree to let her come along and everything-"

"Sorry?" he frowned. "How'd you mean, I would've-" realization lit up his eyes. "You've got to be kidding me," he said. "Her too?"

"Okay, no, we aren't doing this again."

"Sorry?" he asked, sounding a little incredulous at her audacity. She walked over to him, grabbing his jacket lapels.

"You were not selfish for wanting people to share the universe with. If anything, it helped to make the universe a little bit brighter," she told him, though he looked at her skeptically. "Because people who never would've seen more than their own cities and street corners and planet were exposed to the most brilliant parts of the universe, as well as the darkest. Yes, okay," she agreed. "There was darkness in you, and you nearly let that consume you, but you don't know yourself half as well as you think you do if you think, for a second, that you would've let it consume any of them." She smiled. "The brilliant stars. The people you travel with. The light of your life, the moon in your sky-"

"Oi," he said, and she laughed a little.

"My point being," she said, pulling him close. "That you would've done absolutely nothing wrong, and here's the key bit, because you also _would've_ done nothing wrong." Surprise filled his eyes at the realization she was talking about the true events surrounding what had happened with the Moment. "Do me a favor? Forgive the other you. He did the best that he could, just like the rest of us."

He let out a long-suffering sigh. "Fine," he said. "But only because I love you so much."

She smiled. "Funny. I love you too."

"Really?" he asked. "Maybe we should get married."

"That sounds like an amazing idea," she said. "Let's do that right now."

She kissed him, once again amazed that one person could have so much happiness.

++The Planet of the Ood++

"This is not Rome!" Donna protested.

Anna was actually disappointed. She had dressed up for the occasion and everything. Instead, they appeared to be standing in the middle of a snowy terrain, one that she instantly recognized as not Earth. Certainly not Rome.

Donna was also dressed up for the occasion, so she was currently rubbing at her arms.

"Thought it be funny, did you, hazing the new kid on the block? _Donna, we're heading to Rome, dress for the times_ , take me to somewhere that's bloody freezing because it'll be a laugh." She looked at Anna with a critical eye. "Are you in on this?"

She looked at her deadpanned. "Yes," she said, sarcastically. "I definitely dressed up because I thought it'd be a laugh to be freezing as well." She sighed. "Best get changed, then."

"What? Why?"

"Well, the Tardis pulled us off course. When she does that, there's usually a reason. Especially when it's a companion's first trip," _and they were bloody well supposed to end up in Rome. Or, well, to the left of it, anyway._

She frowned when she felt a small feeling of apology being sent to her. She looked at the Doctor, sending him a non-verbal, _was that you?_

 _What?_ His face read. _Absolutely not._

She frowned. Where had it-

Realization crested through her. It was the Tardis. The Tardis was apologizing for not ending up in Pompeii.

It was actually an extraordinarily rare event for the Tardis to be in a present moment. She didn't talk, didn't do the whole fun flashing lights thing to convey emotion.

... Well, except for that one time in canon that she _had_ with Clara, in that minisode where she kept diverting Clara from her bedroom?

… Maybe she just didn't do it often before the Doctor was aware of just how conscious she was. That actually made a fair amount of sense, considering she probably hadn't wanted to ruin the surprise of it all.

The point was, she'd sent an apology to her, a straight up, _I'm sorry for missing_ , thing. She quickly sent back reassurance, putting her hand on the console to tell her that it was absolutely all right, and she trusted that if she did this, it was for a reason.

Anna was even more surprised when she felt her send a reply.

It was clumsy, though, the emotion not well-conveyed. She couldn't decipher what it was, but she could feel the Tardis slipping away from the present moment. The surprise kept coming when Anna realized that the Tardis was actually panicking about slipping away (which, it was strange that she could decipher that emotion, but not the emotion that the Tardis been trying to send not moments before. She didn't focus on this for long). She quickly sent more reassurances to the Tardis, telling her that it was all right, that everything was all right, and she needn't worry, everything would be fine.

It usually seemed to be, anyway.

Anna would never know it, but the Tardis wasn't reassured. The only thing she was, as she felt herself slipping away, was increasingly frustrated. Her thief was about to do something monumentally stupid, and try as she might, the Tardis couldn't coherently warn her of the dangers that were on the horizon.

Anna was privy to none of this. As soon as she felt the Tardis slipping out of the present moment completely, she rubbed at the console reassuringly before she walked back to the wardrobe room to change. She still hadn't let Donna know about her powers, and changing into different clothes randomly in front of her just didn't feel like a grand enough reveal.

#####

"Rocket. Blimey, a real proper rocket! Now that's what I call a spaceship. You two've got a box, he's got a Ferrari."

"Oi!" she said, genuinely offended, though she didn't miss the way that Donna qualified the Tardis as hers. "You're right, the Tardis isn't a Ferrari, she's much better than a Ferrari, she's-she's- I don't know, but _so rude_." She shot her a look. "You'll be lucky if she lets you back on, now."

Donna, instead of looking at Anna, looked at the Doctor. "That's the second time your wife has talked about that space ship like it's alive. I thought you just said-"

"That it is complicated, because it is," he agreed. "Now, come on."

"Ooh, are we following the rocket?"

"Course we are, what else would we be doing?"

Donna had been wrong. She looked at the Doctor and Donna walking off and felt a pang like sadness. The truth of the matter was, _she_ was the third wheel. She'd never felt it like this before because, in all eight years traveling with the Doctor, she'd never been with a companion whilst around him. Even when it had been him and River, it still felt like she'd been part of the club.

Now, with Donna… it just felt like a slap in the face. She'd changed his personal history. Truth be told, she wasn't even supposed to _be_ here.

Well, no, if that were true, she wouldn't have been here at all, but the point still stood. This was Donna's time with the Doctor, and here she was, encroaching on it.

It was strange. For a moment, she felt it with her whole body, that she didn't belong. She shivered.

A moment later, the Doctor turned back to look at her.

"Coming or what?" he asked, trying to conceal the concern he felt at the emotions he could feel coming from her.

She pasted on a fake smile, nodding, even as she felt something she hadn't felt in a long time: like the woman who got left behind.

#####

It didn't really dissipate, not even as the episode progressed. In fact, it started to get worse. By the time they'd made it 'off the beaten path', she was feeling rather small. She'd no idea why, either.

"I was busy," the Doctor explained about why he hadn't saved the Ood the last time he'd run into them. He looked down at these Ood, the ones that were being marched like so much cattle. "So busy I couldn't save them. I had to let the Ood die."

Her eyes widened as she realized. "No, right," she said. "No, I got them."

"Sorry?" he asked, looking over at her.

"Will do," she told him. "Will have them. Remind me later, make a mental note of it."

"What're you talking about?" Donna asked.

"Nothing," she said, quickly, before she nodded down at Halpen and Ryder. "What do you think?" she asked.

"Looks like the boss," Donna said, letting her comments slide.

"Let's keep out of his way. Come on."

It came out of complete nowhere, the strong flash of irritation that rushed through her. _Why_ was the Doctor being an _idiot_?

"No, yeah, let's avoid the big boss man heading to the warehouse that _obviously_ has all the answers, that's a _great_ idea," she told him.

She realized that she could circumvent all the crap that was supposed to happen. None of these people had to die, nor did any of the Ood. It meant if she went to talk to Halpen now, this whole thing could be over in time for tea.

So, she got up, trudging after Halpen and his men.

"Anna, no, hey, what're you-"

"What is she doing?"

"I dunno," he said. "To be honest, I've found that when she gets like this, it's best to just follow her and keep out of her way."

She felt a flash of resentment at that, but didn't say anything, now fuming as she walked down to the warehouse after Halpen and Ryder.

#####

"Mister Halpen, the three people from the Noble Corporation failed to pass security checks," Solana's voice rang over the loudspeaker. "There's no such company. The Noble Corporation doesn't exist. And, on top of that, they seem to have gone missing, sir."

She smirked.

 _"Sorry_ about that!" she announced. Halpen and his men turned to look at the three of them entering, his guards instantly pointing their guns at them. "Terribly rude of us to just _sneak in like this_ , but we do have a full schedule ahead of us."

"Who are you?" Halpen demanded.

Irritation flashed through her, and privately she wondered why she was feeling so irritable all of a sudden. "I'm _sorry_ , were you not _listening_?" she shot at him. "Noble Corporation. Anna, Donna, the Doctor. Hello!" she waved, smiling.

"What is that?" Donna asked, sounding horrified.

"What _is_ that?" she asked, dancing up to the railing. "Did you want to take that one, Mr. Halpen, or should I?"

"Detain them," he said, in an irritated voice. "Take them back to my office for questioning. Just what I needed today, _FOTO_ activitists."

She pouted. "Ooh, buddy," she said, as the guards approached them. They stopped, surprised at the shield. "You're gonna wish that we were just FOTO activitists." She leaned up against the barrier. "But enough about that! That's not interesting, what _is_ interesting is that this isn't just any old brain, is it? Nah, this big old brain is the Ood brain. You've stifled them for hundreds of year so that they'll be willing servants."

"That's an interesting bit of technology you've got. How does it work?"

She shot him a deadpanned look. "Buddy," she said. "Seriously. Do you really think I'm about to tell you how my shield works? For real?" she looked back at the Doctor as if to ask if this guy was for real. The Doctor was too busy sonicking the brain. "Oh, no, right, yes, so, basically, the Ood are born with a secondary brain, like the amygdala in humans. Processes memory and emotions, all that good stuff. Only, they're born with their brains in their hands, and, well, basically, the humans here thought, hey, you know what would be a good idea? Cutting their brains off and replacing it with a translator ball, because that seemed like a really good idea."

"So they… lobotomize them?"

"I'm afraid so," she said.

The Doctor spoke up, despite his earlier words of simply getting out of her way. It appeared he was angry enough to.

"You've got the forebrain and the hind brain, but that wouldn't be enough, because a creature with a separate forebrain and hind brain would be at war with itself. So now, you've got this. The Ood Brain. The third element, the telepathic center. It's a shared mind, connecting the Ood in song."

"Clever bunch, aren't you?" he asked.

"No, that's not what you're supposed to say," she told him. "You're supposed to say that they found that _thing_ centuries ago beneath the Northern Glacier, as if it's something that's not worth more than the dirt on your shoe." She snarled. "And the pylons, surrounding it. The circle must be broken. Isn't that right, Ood Sigma?" she asked, looking over at the Ood in question. "The circle must be broken. The Ood must be free." She barely smiled. "And the Ood must have revenge." She quirked a brow. "Can't say I approve of your methods, the whole bio graft thing." She sighed dramatically, still leaning up against the railing. "But, needs must, I suppose."

"What are you talking about?"

She raised her eyebrows, looking over at Halpen. "Just about giving you a choice, Mr. Halpen! Shut operations down, turn yourself in, or I will do it for you." She snorted. "Well. I'll do something _like_ it, at any rate."

It was shocking to realize that there was a strange buzzing at the back of her mind that she'd been able to hear but hadn't really processed past the feelings of worthlessness she'd suddenly donned like a second cloak. When she realized that she could hear it, though, it amplified itself. It wasn't a buzzing in the back of her head, she realized sadly. It was the Ood singing.

The song of captivity.

She wanted to weep in earnest. Her days living with her mother were nothing compared to what the Ood were going through, but she still found the memories rolling through her head, one after the other. She reached back, grabbing onto the Doctor's hand as she bit her lip. He grabbed hold of it without question, hanging onto her almost as tightly as she was hanging onto him.

Mr. Halpen, of course, was predictable. "Now why would I do that?" he asked her. "You think a couple of FOTO activists with a bit of fancy technology are enough to scare me? I'm made of much stronger stuff than that, I promise you."

She shook her head. "You won't be for much longer," she told him, almost sadly.

She could do it, right now, flip the metaphorical switch and it would've been over.

But, there was still the small matter of what the Doctor and Donna would've done for them. They deserved the credit for this. If it hadn't have been for them, the Ood would've continued to be enslaved (and a faint trace of being a third wheel lingered in the back of her mind, as well as some other unkind words, but she pushed this from her mind and focused).

The only way to make sure that they still got credit was showing the Ood what they had done, but how? It wasn't exactly like she could show them the television show-

No, but she could show Ood Sigma the 'other reality'. Tell them that she'd changed time and that her being here changed things, but that shouldn't discount what they had done. She didn't even know why she had such strong feelings about this. Maybe it was because of the fact that it felt wrong to be here-

Oh. Oh. _Obviously_.

She hadn't been aware of the Ood song, but she was telepathic and empathic. Of course she would've been affected by their song.

Okay. Today made so much more sense.

The point being, whatever it was that made her want to tell the Ood about what the Doctor and Donna would've done if she hadn't've been there didn't matter. What did matter was that she trusted the Ood to keep the secret that she'd changed time. They were the Ood. Of course they would. (though she wouldn't burden them with the knowledge of the television show. That felt cruel, somehow, telling them about how their captivity had been broadcast to millions people).

With this thought in mind, she released the Doctor's hand before she walked up to Ood Sigma, even as Halpen panicked and ordered his guards to fire at her. The bullets bounced uselessly off of her shields.

"If I might be permitted, Ood Sigma, I'd like to show you something important. I wouldn't ask if it weren't."

He didn't even argue, stowing his translator in his pocket before he took off his gloves, holding out his hands to her.

Halpen, in the meantime, was apparently in full on panic mode. "Shoot that Ood!"

As they had done before, the bullets bounced uselessly off of her shields, and she closed her eyes and focused, showing him events as they would've progressed without her.

A moment later, Ood Sigma bowed his head before he stood back, sweeping his arm out towards the control panel.

"Doctor, you may have the honors."

"What?" the Doctor asked, bewildered. "Me? Really?"

Ood Sigma nodded.

"No! Stop them! Stop them, now!"

She quickly trapped Halpen behind a shield of his own, as well as his guards and even Dr. Ryder. She was a little worried that he would pull the stunt that he did on the show, revealing himself as a FOTO activist to Halpen right next to the brain so that he could get pushed into _said_ brain.

The Doctor, in the meantime, was practically vibrating with joy, though he toned it down on the outside.

"Thank you, really, thank you," he said, an Ood Sigma bowed his head once more. He went to the controls, typing away at the keyboard. "Stifled for two hundred years, but not anymore. The circle is broken. The Ood can _sing_!"

A moment later, he flipped the switch.

It was a noticeable difference, like a weight had been lifted off of her mind. She fell against the railing as she let out quiet breaths of relief, though she was overwhelmed by the joy of the Ood singing for the first time in centuries.

Her eyes unintentionally landed on Halpen. She saw a man who had lost everything, broken down in his entirety and not knowing how it had happened in the slightest.

He had no idea about a lot of things that were about to happen. She almost felt sorry for him.

She was distracted from that when the Doctor whooped for joy, jumping up and down, and she joined him in the celebration.

She could hear it. The Ood were singing.

#####

"The message has gone out. That song resonated across the galaxies. Everyone heard it. Everyone knows. The rockets are bringing them back." The Doctor slung a happy arm around Anna's shoulder, the absolute picture of happiness. "The Ood are coming home."

"We thank you, Anna Monroe, Doctor Donna, friends of Oodkind. And what of you now? Will you stay? There is room in the song for you."

"Oh, we've-we've sort of got a song of our own, thanks."

"I think your song must be end soon."

The Doctor's grip on her shoulder tightened. "Meaning?"

"Every song must end."

"Yeah," he said, distantly, before he turned to Donna. "What do you think? Rome?"

"Yeah," Donna agreed.

The Doctor turned back to Ood Sigma. "Then we'll be off."

"Take this song with you."

"Always," the Doctor agreed.

"And know this, Anna Monroe, Doctor Donna, you will never be forgotten. Our children will sing of Anna and the Doctor Donna, and our children's children and the wind and the ice and the snow will carry your names forever."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So there you have it! The first two of the episode block! I didn't really feel like we needed a re-hash of either episodes, so I just sort of showcased what I felt were the important bits. Hope y'all enjoyed the changes that I did make. I love Donna and I really want to do her justice.  
> Next up: The Fires of Pompeii, and oh boy am I excited for this one.


	20. The Fires of Pompeii

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: Quick story time: There were three different versions of this chapter. The first being just including the episode at the tail end of the last chapter as the third episode. Then I got a *great* idea, and that was the second version. I came to realize that it was blatantly ripping off another fanfic author (who I subsequently couldn’t even begin to give credit to without spoiling their story). This is the version that came *after* that one. Now, this isn’t something that just randomly popped out of the blue. This is something that would’ve eventually had to happen, but I knew it could’ve happened at any time in the story.  
> That being said, quarantine has exacerbated my depression to the point that going forward, y’all have to assume that this story might GENUINELY just be angst. I just want to give a fair warning to those who’d like to bow out now. I’d totally understand if you’d like to. That being said, I’ve come to find that if I promise happiness, it becomes angst and vice versa. I don’t have enough of THIS story planned going forward to say otherwise, but I’d thought I’d give a fair warning.  
> TW for emotional abuse. Again.  
> I still don’t own Doctor Who.

The Tardis straight up wouldn’t land.

That’s how this adventure had started. The Tardis was straight up refusing to land, completely and utterly. No matter how much coaxing and mallet hitting they did (though the mallet hitting was the Doctor as Anna looked on with a disapproving eye), the Tardis refused to cooperate.

It devolved into her finally having to send the pair out of the room to converse with her (though she didn’t straight up tell them that she was talking with the machine. She asked for them to the leave the room and the Doctor complied, just like that).

Their conversation had amounted to there being a paradox if they landed but also if they didn’t. The Tardis was doing the only thing she thought she could do (even if she couldn’t effectively communicate why she was doing it).

She ended up swearing to the Tardis that she’d prevent the paradox from occurring. Anna could feel that the Tardis wasn’t reassured, but she still gave in, and they were off.

The bad day got worse when they found out they were in Pompeii instead of Rome (at least from the Doctor’s perspective it was a bad day. Anna was having a great day. She'd convinced the Tardis to land _and_ she was about to save twenty thousand people. It was a great day).

It didn’t help matters much that the Tardis wasn’t where they had parked it, though it was a quick jaunt from point a to point b as they all split up to look for Foss Street.

It was then that _her_ good day went to being a really, really bad one.

#####

“I need you to freeze time.”

The words came at the same time as the elbow linked with hers. She felt surprise rolling through her as she was pulled down the street, and she looked over to see the blonde woman doing the pulling.

“Oh, hey!” she said, excitement sitting in her gut, though she could feel the paradox looming closer. That made sense. Two of them in Pompeii at the same time was bound to lead to bad things. Although, considering that they’d met before and there hadn’t been a paradox, why now would there be one?

“Anna, freeze time,” she ordered, tugging her along with more urgency.

“Okay, okay, yeesh.”

She did as she was asked, freezing time. Like the rest of the occupants on the street, she and the Doctor stopped at the same moment, though she and the Doctor were different in that they weren’t frozen mid-selling wares and casually catching fruit and generally living their lives.

The Doctor took her face in her hands. “I need you to teleport us to the future,” she said. “But before you do that, I need you to make it so that you can forget everything you’re about to see.”

Surprise filled her before she frowned. “I… can’t,” she said, and at the impatient look on the Doctor’s face, she spoke. “I- my-my memory, it’s tamper proof. As in, even I can’t erase it.”

“Can’t or won’t?”

The Doctor’s hands fell from her face as fidgeted impatiently, looking around. It was like she was waiting for some threat to pop out from around the corner, even though time had already been frozen.

“I mean, won’t-”

“Okay, then do it anyway,” she said. “This is important.”

She’d never seen this Doctor look so serious. Anna's frown deepened and she shook her head.

“No,” she said, and the Doctor looked back at her, that impatience now colored with annoyance. “It’s a rule for a reason-”

“Then _break the rule_ ,” she said. “This is _important_.”

“Important enough to risk a paradox so bad that the Tardis refused to land here? Because I’m assuming you had that on yours as well- and I’m sure you remember what it was like trying to get here, so what-”

“Do you really think I’d risk a paradox of that size on a whim? Seriously?”

She held up her hands. “You’re right,” she told the Doctor. “I’m sorry. If you’re saying that it’s important, then it is, and I get that, but I can’t tamper with my own memory, no matter how important it is-”

“Stop saying that you can’t! It’s not _can’t_ , it’s _won’t_ ,” she told her, that annoyance now devolving to anger. “I don’t understand why! Anna, do you think that I would be here for anything less than life or death?”

“Okay, okay,” she said. “What about the future me? Where’s she?”

“She’s already helping with this. We need you as well.”

She raised her eyebrows, searching her. “For… what?” she asked.

The annoyance bled out to be replaced only with anger. “If I could’ve _told you that_ , don’t you think I _would’ve done_?” she asked.

“No, okay, _no_ ,” she said, sternly. “Whatever it is that’s got you so upset, that gives you _no right_ to _yell_ at me without even _explaining_ the situation. I get that you’re upset, I can see that, but I’m not standing here and having you disrespect me just because I’m not answering questions in a way that you like.”

She looked at her incredulously. “In a way that _I don’t like_ \- Anna, I’m asking you for _one thing_. Just _one_. Just break _one_ of your rules for me, just this once, just this _one time_. You know how important it is to me and you’re still _refusing_ to do it. _That’s_ what I’m upset about, not the fact that you’re not answering questions _in a way that I like_. It’s that you’re not taking what I’m asking _seriously_ and you’re just flat out refusing without even giving it a second _thought_.”

“You think that I haven’t given this a second thought? I’m _thinking_ about the paradox on the horizon-”

“Just shut up about that!” she shouted at her, and she felt herself tensing. She crossed her arms and waited for her to apologize for yelling at her. “I know time, Anna. I know how to read it, I get how big this paradox is, but you’ve _no_ idea what’s at stake here! I need you to do this and I need you to do it now, no questions asked.”

She shook her head. “No,” she said.

“This is important-”

“And it’s _important_ to me that I don’t break my rules. That’s part of being the right kind of being of power is that I _respect_ my own rules, and I can’t start breaking those rules now.” She shook her head. “Not even for you.”

A fire ripped through her eyes. “I shouldn’t be surprised, should I? Considering that there’s a lot that you won’t give up for me.”

She furrowed her brows. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

There was a cold fury in her eyes. “Just what it says on the tin,” she told her, crossing her arms.

This wasn’t the Doctor anymore, she realized, suddenly. This was the Oncoming Storm. She was furious right now, and Anna’d no idea why.

“I’d give up everything for you, Anna. The traveling, the Tardis, my home planet, I’d give up _everything_ for you-”

“I’d _never_ ask you to do that,” she cut in.

“You wouldn’t have to ask!” she shouted at her. “I’d do it gladly and freely, because I love you more than _anything_ , Anna, but you? You’re not even willing to break one _single_ rule for me when I need you the most.” She searched her eyes before she spoke precisely. “If I asked you, right now, to give up your abilities for me, would you?”

There was a character on _Once Upon a Time_ called Rumpelstiltskin. The show had labeled him a coward because he hadn’t been willing to give up his power to be with the woman that he loved.

Anna had agonized about that for a very long time. If she were unwilling to give up her powers for the woman that she loved, did that make her a coward, too? In those days, she’d been unwilling to give up her abilities because she’d been so afraid of what her mother had done to her, and she’d never wanted to feel that powerless again. But now? It wasn't about her mother anymore. It was about the lives that she could save and the difference that she could make.

“Just because I’m not willing to give up my powers for you doesn’t mean that I don’t love you any less than you love me,” she told her. “For you to imply-”

Realization swept through her and she took a step back, raising her eyebrows.

“Oh, holy shit,” she said, quietly. “Is that-is that the paradox, the one big enough to stress the Tardis out so badly that she’s refusing to land? That I have to give up my abilities and if I don’t, the paradox will rip through this universe?”

Anger grew in her eyes, though it was a cold fury. “If I said yes?” she asked. “Would you do it?”

She opened and closed her mouth, feeling real fear bleed through her. To be powerless, completely at the mercy of the universe in a way she’d never been before? She’d been under her mother’s thumb, fine, but at least she’d had the knowledge that one day she’d be free of her.

If she didn’t do this, though, the universe might genuinely fall apart and collapse, that’s how bad the paradox was.

She let out a shaky breath, feeling herself growing more nauseous by the second. “All the people I couldn’t save, all the people I’d planned on saving…”

But maybe she’d never meant to. Maybe the people had to die, in order for the universe to keep turning.

“What if I just- what if I just head back, to my universe?” she asked. “Would that-would that produce the same results?”

Astonishment and genuine hurt raced through her eyes. “You… you would _genuinely_ leave me behind and never look back so that you wouldn’t have to lose your powers?”

Surprise swept through her. “I didn’t think about it like that,” she said.

“What?” she asked, shouting once more. “You didn’t think about the fact that leaving this universe forever would mean that you would also be leaving me behind forever, too?”

“No, I didn’t, _actually_!” she shouted right back. “I was thinking about all the _people_ that I’m supposed to save-”

“You _married_ me, Anna! You made promises, vows, and you just…” she shook her head. “You’re so willing to leave that all behind for a bit of power.”

“This is so unfair to me,” she told her. “You’re not even giving me a chance to think about it, to work through how it might even be possible to keep my powers and still stay in this universe-”

“You shouldn’t _have_ to think about it, Anna, it shouldn’t even be a _choice_! You should want to be with me, your wife, for the _rest_ of your life, and you just so easily threw me away like trash because you were afraid of a life that you didn’t _plan out to a t_.”

Realization hit her and she shook her head. “You’re asking me to make some ultimate declaration of love, to throw all of it away for you, but I don’t _get_ that luxury. I’m a being of _power_ , and that comes with more responsibility than just fixing _your_ problems, saving lives in _your_ universe. I have a duty to the multiverse, and I don’t just get to decide to throw it all away because _my_ _love_ is more important, because it isn’t. It’s not more important than the good that I could be doing for the multiverse.”

The hurt that rested in the Doctor was so visceral that it made Anna flinch, tears watering her eyes. The Doctor raised her eyebrows listlessly.

“You want a second to think about it, how you could still save all of those people and still be powerless at the end of it? Save them all, in the blink of an eye.” She felt a thrill of surprise run through her. “You could do that, right now, save every person you were ever meant to with the click of your fingers-”

Desperation welled up in her. “Then what would be the _point_?” she shouted. “What would the point of being alive be if I couldn’t be out there, _saving_ people?”

Fresh surprise ran through the Doctor… before a cascade of hurt once again followed, stacking on top of the old hurt.

“Do you realize what you just said?” she asked. “You just said there would be no point in even being alive if that happened. Apparently, our love and the life we have together isn't a reason to live.” She ran her hands through her hair, shaking her head. “Is this who you’ve always been and I just never noticed it? This being who’s so power hungry that she’s not even willing to _live_ if she doesn’t have that power that she so desperately craves?”

She felt a fierceness running through her. 

“That’s _not_ what I said," she replied. "I said there wouldn’t be a point in being alive if I wasn’t _saving_ people, not that I needed power to _live_.” She shook her head. “I mean, is that what you really think of me? That I’m just this desperate power hungry being who has to control the universe in order to feel okay? Because, if that’s true, then you’re right, you’ve never noticed who I am before, and let me tell you, as the person who married you about a month ago, that’s making me worry a lot about our future.”

The Doctor just felt so desolate in that moment. “You know what’s making me worry about our future? The fact that you corrected me about the power hungry bit, but not the bit about a life with me, your _wife_ , not being enough reason for you to live.” She searched her eyes. “The fact that you didn't even give a second thought to throwing me away, but you were coming up with alternatives left and right when it came to saving your powers.” She raised her eyebrows. “Would you have genuinely done it, if I told you that you would’ve been allowed to keep your powers if you fled this universe and left me behind?”

“If I didn’t have enough power to save everyone that I’m meant to, in the blink of an eye? Honestly, really, truly? Yes,” she told her. “But that has _nothing_ to do with how much I love you, or the fact that you have the audacity to think that that somehow makes me power hungry, because it _doesn’t_. It means that I understand that _my own happiness_ is not worth more than the good that I could be doing for the rest of the universe.”

There were tears lining the bottom of the Doctor’s eyes. “ _Get to the end of the universe, and all that’s left is ash and dust_.” She felt surprise flying through her that the Doctor was quoting her. “Saving people, affecting lives for the better, it matters, but it’s not the only thing that matters. Who you love and how you love them matters too, and if you’re _genuinely_ trying to tell me that you’d rather spend your life saving people but doing it alone rather than even _consider_ the idea that trading that in for the love of your life might be worth it, then I really underestimated you, Anna. I underestimated who you are and what you could’ve been, and I’m sorry for that, for both of us, that I’ve wasted all of this time on us when you could’ve been doing something that you deemed more worthy with your life. I’m _so_ sorry for that. Don't worry, though. I won’t _continue_ to make that mistake.”

She felt a cold spread through her and she raised her eyebrows. She opened her mouth to speak but it was suddenly too dry. She swallowed, but she still wasn’t able to speak, even as she watched the Doctor input coordinates on the vortex manipulator she hadn’t noticed she was wearing.

“Goodbye, Anna. Have a good life.”

With that, she slammed her hand down on the vortex manipulator and had disappeared in the blink of an eye.

She stared after her. For a long time, she stared after her, staring at the spot where she’d vanished, before she blinked, finally waking up.

She walked through the frozen crowds, though it felt like she was the only person alive in the universe. Was this who the Doctor was, she wondered? This person who would continue to hurt her in ways that she’d never thought she’d be hurt again?

It was one thing to say that people weren’t perfect. Even in good marriages, people hurt their spouses. But this? The Doctor kept using what they knew would hurt her the deepest, without even giving her a chance to defend herself.

She’d been so willing to be treated like a doormat the first time that it had happened, to just bow down and take it. She’d so _easily_ forgiven him, on the basis that he was the man who forgives but also was the man who sometimes needed to be forgiven.

But this? To say that she was a power hungry monster who couldn’t see life outside of that? That wasn’t fair, and it wasn’t right, and if after all these years she really thought that that’s who she was…

She’d stood there and taken all the bad things her mother had ever said about her. She wouldn’t do the same here. Not now, and not ever again.

The paradox continued to grow the closer she walked to him, but she didn’t care. She made it to the Doctor and she unfroze time.

“Oh, Anna! Did you- what’re you doing?”

He was probably talking about the fact that she was pulling her ring off of her finger. She held it out to him and he took it, just because he appeared to be so bewildered.

“I’m done,” she said.

“With… what?” he asked, confusion clear on his face.

“With you. Goodbye, Doctor. Have a fantastic life.”

She turned from him and teleported out, not giving him a chance to say anything in return.

When she landed, the paradox came to a head, starting to pass. She was paradox proof, so she’d continue to exist just fine in the universe, but the rest of the universe wouldn’t fair so well. This paradox was huge.

Before she even had a chance to smooth it out, to take away the energy or to fix it so that the universe could remain whole, the universe blinked out of existence.

#####

That’s how it felt, anyway.

It was pain and a flash of white in her vision and she was suddenly back, standing in Pompeii, the bustling crowds walking around her. She tried to make sense of what she was seeing, confusion rolling through her. If the universe had ended, then what was she-

Oh, no, _obviously_. Considering that she could exist in a universe that didn’t exist, she had the ability to travel back to the moment that started the end of the universe. That felt time consuming, though, especially since she could build a mechanism that would automatically set her back to the reason the universe had ended. So, she had.

But that couldn’t be what this was, though. It appeared she was back in the body she’d been in when she had done this originally. Proof of that was sitting on her left hand, glistening in the Pompeii sun.

Thinking back to it, it didn’t actually feel like the universe had ended, either. It was like… she didn’t know how to explain it. There was pain, and that flash of white. Maybe it had just been her being overrun by time energy.

So why deposit her back to this moment?

“Anna.”

Standing in front of her once more was the Doctor, all blonde and rainbow shirt and looking guilty as _hell_.

“Your future self and I had to utilize the power of- Anna, please, wait, just let me explain-”

There was pain in her voice and in the connection they shared, and it was so visceral that it started to uncork her own hurt at what had been said, dragging her out of that numb shock.

“Explain what?” she asked, her face crumpled as she brought a shaking hand to her mouth, time frozen around them once more. “You’ve made it very, very clear-” she felt frustration running through her at the fact that she were crying and she wiped at her tears angrily with her shaking hand before she let out a harsh breath.

“We had to create that specific paradox to save someone, Anna, there was no part of me that wanted to do that, I _literally_ suggested dying and demanded that we go through with that plan instead of this, I swear, I’m- I can’t even- there is no justification for this, for how I hurt you, but I didn’t- I swear, on my life and everything that I hold dear, that I didn’t mean _anything_ that I said about you.”

She was shaking and she shook her head. There wasn’t really anger anymore. In it's place was the emotion like she'd been egregiously physically injured and didn't have the wherewithal or the want to focus or understand.

She said as much.

“I don’t understand what you’re saying."

“Okay, I’m sorry, just-” she ran her hands through her hair before she put her hands on her hips. “There was- something terrible happened, in the future. It was the angels, and the only way that we could stop them was to create-”

She frowned. “The angels?” she asked.

"No, we-we had to create _that_ specific paradox, in order to poison the angels, like-like Amy and Rory, like how they- they-" her eyes widened but she shook her head. "But that-that doesn't matter, the point is, we had to create _that_ specific paradox so that we could poison the angels. Once that was done, time reverted back to the way that it had been before we started the paradox in the first place."

She frowned. “So… So you came back and you said all those awful things to me because you wanted me to leave you, because you needed to create a paradox?”

“Yes.”

She shook her head. “I don’t believe you,” she said, quietly, and real fear bled into the Doctor’s eyes and through the Doctor herself. “You said so yourself, I could save everyone I’m ever meant to save in the blink of an eye, so why didn’t I just create the energy to replicate the paradox to destroy the angels? And that’s another thing, I don’t kill things, so I don’t believe you, even a little bit, you’re a friggin' _liar_ , who the hell are you to come at me and tell me- what, is this who you really are, is this how you get your rocks off, by telling emotionally abused people all the things that they’ve grown up hearing and then setting it back and acting like, 'Oh, no, I just needed it for… for…'” she blinked, looking down at the ground, confused. “But that doesn’t make sense,” she contemplated, quietly. She traced patterns on the ground with her eyes before she looked up at the Doctor. “I’m really confused right now.”

“I know,” the Doctor said. “I know, and I’m so sorry for that. We went through a thousand ways that we could do this, and I literally suggested using my all of my regeneration energy because it would be powerful enough to replicate the energy from the paradox, but you insisted on doing it like this, forcing me to hurt you like this, and I’m- I’m so sorry for that.”

“But I don’t believe you,” she said. There was less fear in the Doctor’s eyes. “I don’t understand, why would I have told you to hurt me like this?”

“Because you said it was the only way that it would definitely work, that we could save-” her eyes barely widened. “-that we could do what needed to be done.”

She furrowed her brows uncertainly.

“I don’t understand,” she repeated, quietly. There was patience in The Doctor's eyes now, but there was also an agony she was trying desperately to conceal. “So… you don’t think that I’m a power hungry monster who would rather choose death over you?”

“I don’t, I don’t, I swear,” she told her, placing her hands on either of Anna's shoulders.

“Please don’t,” she said, quietly, and the Doctor released her, but continued to speak, albeit a little bit more hesitantly.

“It was unfair of me to ask you to do that. You’ve just fully healed from what your mother’s done to you, and when- when you’ve been in that environment for that long- you’re still learning what it means to love. You’re still learning how to get lost in someone the way that people do when you love somebody, because you’ve never learned how to, because you don’t have the foundation for it. Not yet, anyway. And that’s not to say that you don’t know how to love, that’s just to say that you’re still learning how to love someone as deeply as I love you, if that- I don’t even know if that makes sense, honestly,” she said, and Anna raised her eyebrows, realizing that the Doctor’s hands were shaking. “I’m honestly so terrified that I’ve just lost you and I don’t even know that if what we just did was worth it, and I’m half-tempted to head back to the future you and tell her to sod this because I _hated_ this, Anna. I’ve done a lot of things in my life but hurting you like this is one of the _worst_ , and I’m so sorry for this, Anna, I swear, I am, I didn’t mean any of what I said, and I love you, I do, and I would never, ever do what I said I would, I promise, I wouldn’t, I swear.”

She held up her hand so that the Doctor would stop talking, because she was so drained of energy that it was an effort to speak. The Doctor came to a halt in speaking, anxiety riddling her face.

“So, you’re telling me that you didn’t mean any of what you said,” she said, quietly, and the Doctor nodded.

“Yes, and I’m-”

“No, sh,” she said, holding up her finger. The Doctor bit her lip, but waited. Anna opened and closed her mouth before she nodded. “You didn’t mean any of what you said, and despite the fact of how important this obviously was to me and my future self, you still want to take it back, even though whatever it was obviously worked, because you’re so regretful of how badly you hurt me.”

“Yes,” she said, quietly, opening her mouth before her mouth became tight lipped. She nodded, despite the fact that she was desperate to continue speaking.

She furrowed her brow, searching her eyes. “But you weren’t wrong.”

The Doctor eyes widened. Panic fled through her. “No, Anna, I-”

“When the time came, I _did_ just throw you away, _so easily_. Like trash. Like you didn’t mean anything to me. I just… walked away from you, and our future, and everything that we ever could’ve been. Even if that weren’t the case, I wouldn’t pick you over my powers, I would pick my powers over you. I would rather be dead than to not have my powers, because I don’t see a point in a life where I don’t get to live out the days where I help people, because what is the point? I don’t deserve you.” She looked down at the ground, her brow still furrowed. “I _am_ Rumpelstiltskin,” she whispered, quietly, because she was a coward who couldn’t stand the thought of not living that life.

She made a decision, then. She smoothed out her face and she looked up at the Doctor.

“I’ll do it.”

She didn’t know what true terror was until she felt it strike the Doctor.

“Do what?” she asked, though it was like the words could barely leave her lips. Her own face was smooth, but her hands were shaking as she subtly brought one up to the vortex manipulator.

“Give up my abilities,” she told her.

The Doctor choked. “Sorry, _what_?”

She nodded. “You’re right, I can-I can save all of those people in the blink of an eye, and then- and then I can be with you.” She nodded, smiling as she cupped the Doctor's face in her hands. “Because you’re right, you’re right, I thought that I needed my powers to live, but I don’t, the only thing that I need is you.”

“Woah, woah, woah, okay, Anna, Anna, I need you to hear the words that I’m saying, right now.”

“I did,” she said, nodding, taking a step back as she stuffed her hands into her jacket pocket. “I did, I heard you. You’re right. I would be a coward if I chose my powers over you-”

“That’s not what I said.”

She raised her eyebrows, holding her hands out to either side of her. “Then what did you say?” she asked, letting her hands drop.

“A lie,” she told her, quietly, and Anna frowned.

“No, but I did choose my powers over you-”

“Because you’ve just healed yourself emotionally. You haven’t had time to consider what a life outside of your emotional abuse looks like-”

“I shouldn’t need time-”

“So somebody who’s been tortured shouldn’t get a chance to recover and should be forced to automatically be ingrained back into society?”

She frowned. “I don’t understand.”

“She tortured you, Anna-”

“She was never physical with me,” she quickly corrected.

“But she still tortured you with words. She did the equivalent of breaking your bones, over and over again, so that she could keep you in line, except she did it with words. She made it so easy for you to believe that even fighting back was actually abusing the abuser.”

She frowned. “Okay, I know this, so why-”

“Because you healed your emotions but you still need to learn to live outside of what she did to you. That means giving yourself time to envision a life outside of that torture, and what that could even look like in the long term. You've only ever seen the life that she designed for you. So, yeah, you've had time to think about what your life looks like in the long term, but traveling with me makes it difficult to see things in that light. You haven't had a chance to picture what your life could look like ten years down the road without her, let alone the rest of time. It wasn't fair of me to ask you to give up your powers when you're still learning how to live outside of what you've always known.”

“I know, I know,” she said, waving her off. She felt like she was finally coming back to herself and she let out a breath before she pointed at her. “I’m still incredibly angry with you right now.”

“You have every right to be. I just… want to say, though, that I was wrong.”

She frowned, looking over at her. “What?”

She held up her hands in a placating manner. “Despite everything that I just said, you were willing to give up all of that, to let yourself be so lost in me that there was nothing else. You trusted me enough to know that life with me would’ve been enough for you, and more than that, you trusted me enough to never do what your mother had done to you, and make you feel a victim, or trapped, or like the world was being burned down around you and like I was the one lighting the flame. I was wrong, Anna. You’re more than I could’ve ever thought, and _I_ don’t deserve _you_. I promise you, though, that I will never do this to you again. You have my complete and utter word. Considering what's happened, I understand if you don't trust my word alone, so take it from someone who's very, _very_ far into your future that knows that I will never do this to you again.”

She searched her face for a moment before she shook her head, wiping a hand down her own face. “No, I’m not angry with you,” she let out a moment later. “You were doing what you had to, and if the future me said that this is the only way to do what needed to be done, then I trust her.”

The Doctor had minimally relaxed, despite the fact that she hadn’t commented on what the Doctor had said. The truth was, she didn’t know if what she’d said was out of fear or not, and that was the worst part. She’d been healed emotionally, that was true, but that didn’t mean that old scars couldn’t be torn open anew. If that were true, she could be manipulated to do whatever it was that someone else wanted, if the damage was bad enough.

She vowed to herself never to let that happen again, setting a safeguard in place so that she would know the difference between doing something because she wanted to and doing something because she was afraid of someone's anger (and then _firmly_ ignoring the safeguard itself when it activated a moment later, telling her that her decision hadn’t been out of fear. She wasn’t sure how much she trusted that. Right now, anyway).

She looked off in the distance, tears lining the bottom of her eyes as she shook her head, looking down at her shoes as she scuffed at the pavement with her toe.

“I can’t believe that I have to do Pompeii right now,” she said, quietly, the emotions a torrent inside of her.

“We can head out somewhere-"

She shook her head sniffling. “No, I’ve a feeling that I have to do this right now.” Realization crested her like a wave against the shore. “Time’s too sensitive to skip it. Right. Okay.”

“Anna, I’m-”

She shook her head, biting her thumbnail. “It’s not your fault,” she said, quietly.

They were silent for a moment before she looked back at the Doctor.

“Did it work?” she asked.

“Did what work?”

She threw her a look that said, _Seriously_? But answered her all the same. “The thing that started this whole stupid thing in the first place,” she told her.

“I’m still not following.”

“The paradox,” she said.

“Oh! Oh, right, right, um, yeah. Yeah, future you said-said that it worked, so. Listen, Anna-”

“Great,” she said, and she nodded. “I’ll see you in the future, then.”

“Anna, wait-”

She stalked off, unfreezing time. She didn’t pause, she didn’t turn back, and most of all, she didn’t stop.

#####

It didn’t matter that his planet hadn’t burned, this still affected the Doctor in a big way. It definitely affected Donna the same way. It was for this reason that Caecilius and his family were still saved, standing on that hilltop and declaring the events volcanic. The family would end up Rome, and nobody would know that the bones that would be uncovered at Pompeii were just replicas of the real people who had been transported to the alternate dimension that Anna had created for just such an occasion.

She saved all of them. All nineteen thousand, nine hundred and ninety six people, because none of them needed to be buried under Pompeii in order for their bones to be discovered. They all got to live out the rest of their lives, happy and healthy and with the people they loved.

“Thank you,” Donna said to the Doctor, back on the somber Tardis. Neither of them knew that she’d saved the rest of everyone, because Caecilius and his family had to be saved in the way that they were, or they wouldn’t have been stationed in Rome.

“Yeah. You were right. Sometimes we need someone.”

Apparently, she was still angry, and the implication that she’d needed someone was the popping of the champagne bottle, letting all of whatever was inside spill out.

She didn’t even think about it. She just let herself teleport out.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: This was not what I had planned, and as such, it might be a bit of time before I get the next update out (then again, it might be tomorrow. Who knows, at this point).  
> As always, thanks for reading.


	21. Chapter 24

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Welcome back. Since I have posted last chapter, I've actually read a couple of fics that employed the same idea as that other author, so I guess it wouldn't have been blatantly stealing as it's something of a trope now. That being said, I am now happier with how things ended up turning out because it gave us this next arc. Just something I'm trying out. We'll see how it turns out, but I do hope y'all enjoy it.  
> Just a quick note, when talking about all the Doctors as one person, I use the 'they/them' pronouns. When referring to specific Doctors, I use their preferred pronouns, i.e., 13 is 'she/her' and this Doctor is 'he/him'. I felt like that was important to note, so that nobody feels like I'm being willy nilly with pronouns? If that makes sense.  
> As always, thanks for reading!  
> I still don't own Doctor Who.

She teleported back in nearly as soon as she teleported out, but that didn't seem to matter. When she came back, she was faced with an empty console room, but more than that, it was a darkened console room.

The lights came back on slowly, but Anna couldn't pay attention to that. She was bewildered by how the Tardis felt and the fact that she now appeared to be empty when she wasn't moments ago. What in the hell had happened?

_"Donna, this is important."_

She was startled when she heard the Doctor's voice, and she looked around the console room to see if either of them were in here, but neither of them were. She could see the glow of the light from the monitor, and she quickly walked over to it.

The Doctor was sitting there, looking for all the world like nothing else was more serious.

 _"If Anna comes back, you need to tell her to cloak her energy signature. If the Family discovers her-"_ her eyes widened and she covered her mouth. Shit.

The Family of Blood.

 _"-a feast wouldn't even_ describe _what they had if they got their hands on her, and I won't let that happen, not even as a human. Oh, yes, and obviously tell her that I've changed myself to human, but_ make sure _you tell her to disguise her energy signature_ first thing _. Have you got that? Disguise her energy signature."_

"Oh, right," she said, quietly, and she did as she was told, disguising her energy signature.

_"Even if she does come back, there's no telling that she'll be able to help with this, so I can't count on that. The only thing I can count on is that I'll have you, so here's a list of instructions for when I'm human."_

He then devolved into his _Family of Blood_ speech, the one he was supposed to give with Martha.

There were a few things to digest here, but first and foremost was that she'd apparently teleported out for more than two seconds. How long had it been, she wondered? He was still traveling with Donna so it couldn't have been more than a few months, at the very longest. Long enough that the two of them had gotten themselves into a vat of trouble that he was supposed to get into with Martha.

That was the other thing. He was supposed to get into this vat of trouble _with Martha_. She hadn't been worried about it when they'd done _42_ (mainly because, well, she'd been a little distracted in her glow of happiness at the time). But, this was the second adventure that they'd done that was supposed to be something he'd gotten into with Martha-

Oh, no, hold on, this would make _three. Three_ adventures that Martha was supposed to be there for, but wasn't in this new timeline.

Was the Tardis trying to give her a hint that Martha wouldn't be there, now? Was this her way of telling her that she was supposed to take Martha's place? She wasn't down for that. Not in the slightest. Martha was amazing and incredible. She was the Doctor's most capable companion with very little training. Rose had grown into being able to handle herself. Martha had just had a natural talent for it. The amount of times that Martha ended up saving the Doctor's life right at the start, as well as the amount of times he'd _literally_ left her in the lurch to take care of herself _and she had_. Swimmingly. This had been a prime example of that, and if anybody needed more proof, look to The Year. Or _Blink_. Or _Daleks in Manhattan_ , when he'd actually asked her to _fight_.

Martha was amazing. She didn't deserve to lose her place on the Tardis because of what Anna had done.

This was something to unpack later, though. For now, she had to navigate the 1913 countryside to see if she could find her way to the school where the Doctor (now John Smith) was working. She'd use the time during the walk to figure out a plan for this whole nonsense thing, which shouldn't have even been necessary, because why the hell had she been teleported so far into the future when she'd literally meant to be teleported away for less than a second?

"Anna."

She was surprised and she whirled around at the sound of the voice coming from behind her. When she did, she was surprised by what she saw. Or rather, who.

"Tardis," she said, quietly.

It didn't even look like a holographic display. It looked like the Tardis was standing right in front of her, looking at her for all the world like she… She didn't know. She couldn't describe the emotions that were currently laying on the Tardis' face.

"What-"

"We need to talk about what happened."

She frowned before her brows furrowed. "Okay," she said. "First off, though, how are you doing this? I thought you were on low power."

"I am," she agreed. "Made it easier to know which present moment to be in, to use a trick that you'll teach me, in the future. But never mind that. We need to talk."

"Yeah, I have no idea what happened," she told her. "I meant to teleport out for two seconds-"

"I did that."

She frowned. "Sorry, what?"

"What the two of you did, the future you's, you nearly ripped a hole in all of space and time to do it, so great that the whole universe might have stopped existing if your future self hadn't stepped in in time, which she nearly didn't."

"Okay, and I'm sorry for that, but this is something to talk to future me about, not right now me, because I'm not the one who did it, so…?"

"But you will be the one who does it," she told her. "The proof of that is in the fact that you went through with it, that you continue to, over and over again, across all of time and space. Besides which, this you did make a promise to me, and you broke it."

Her eyes widened. "Oh… crap, no, I'm-I'm sorry, I didn't-"

"You almost left my thief, for good and completely, and would have, if events hadn't come to pass the way they did. What she said, she had no right to. Tearing open those old wounds like that was cruel, and it was part of the reason that I didn't land in the first place. I was hoping you might come up with a different solution, but you never seem to be able to." She took a step forward. "But you made them a promise. Forever and always, you said, and you just threw that away over one fight."

"A fight that was designed to _make me walk away_ ," she said, feeling anger creeping up on her. "You don't get to _judge me_ for protecting myself from the type of monster that I grew up with. What was I supposed to think?"

"That the Doctor wouldn't have done this without good reason. You should've known that they loved you more than they love the stars themselves, and you should've trusted that. Besides which, is that what you think of them? That they are the same type of monster that you grew up with?"

She bit her lip so hard that she almost drew blood, and she took a step back out of reaction.

"Because the Doctor is many things, but that's not one of them. They won't hurt you like you've been hurt in the past. Not anymore. It's never been more important that you start trusting that love, that you let yourself fall into it the way that they have."

She snarled before she looked down. "I'm trying."

"I'm sorry, dear, you aren't."

She snarled again, barely glancing up at the Tardis to do it.

"You trust with the training wheels on," she told her, and she looked up at her fully. "You trust them but only because you know that you have your powers to fall back on."

"What exactly are you asking me to do?"

"I'm asking you to turn your powers off."

She snarled at that, but this time, it was more out of fear than anything else.

"As you humans say, put your money where your mouth is. Prove that you would be willing to give up everything for them."

She felt agony soaring through her. "What about the people that I'm supposed to save?"

"Do as they suggested," she told her. "Save the people that you're meant to up until the end of the red haired one's companionship."

She felt something strike her at that, a different kind of sadness soaring through her, and she looked at the Tardis miserably.

"What about paradoxes? How am I supposed to know when I'm supposed to step in and when I'm not?"

"That's the _point_ Anna!" she said. "You saying this only proves that you don't trust them to take care of things. You're not the only thing holding the universe together with tape and glue, Anna. There's a reason they're as well-regarded as they are. You need to trust him, and you need to turn off your powers." She'd walked up to her, and she took her hands in her own, which would've been surprising but she was so focused on events that it wasn't even the slightest bit strange that the Tardis was physically holding her. "Not forever. Just for now."

She sniffled, shaking her head. Her hands were shaking, and the Tardis squeezed them. "I don't know how to turn them back on without dying," she said, quietly.

"Then save everyone until the end of the orange one and the pretty one," she said, gently, and Anna let out a hysterical laugh at the nicknames. The Tardis barely smiled before she put her hair behind her ear, searching her eyes. "You can do this. I know you can."

She threw herself at the Tardis, wrapping her up in a tight hug as she buried her face into her shoulder.

"I'm scared," she said, quietly, pathetically.

"I know," she replied, just as quietly. "But I'm here, I'm right here, and so is my Thief. We'll be there for you, no matter what." She pulled her back, grasping her face gently in her hands before she nodded. "I've got you," she whispered. "You can do this."

She nodded before she let out a shaky breath. A moment later, she closed her eyes. In the blink of an eye, the people that she was supposed to save through to the end of Amy and Rory's tenure would be saved via a Dues Ex Machina transaction. If it ended up that she died before then, she could always fix it so that she was the one doing the saving. As for the alternate dimension and the barriers around Gallifrey, she made those self-sustaining.

Her fear came to a head as she felt the Tardis kiss her forehead.

"Good luck," she whispered.

A moment later, it was done.

Anna instantly collapsed to the grating below, breathing hard. She gripped at the cool metal with shaking hands, fitting her fingers into the holes on the grating so that she could get a better grip.

She was dying. Oh _goodness_ , she was _dying_ , she was _dying_ , her heart was beating too fast and she was breathing too hard and she was _dying_.

If she died now, the Doctor would never know how much she loved him.

She sobbed, putting a hand over her mouth as she shook her head.

When she opened her eyes, she saw that the Tardis projection had vanished from sight.

#####

She stumbled her way blindly through the countryside. Her lungs and all of her muscles were burning. She collapsed against a tree and tried to breathe, tried to focus, tried to do _anything_ except for the one thing she _wanted_ to do, which was fall apart and collapse.

She had to find the Doctor.

She didn't even know why it was so urgent. She just knew that the colors were more vivid, the air was crisper and cooler, her breath fogging out in front of her in great bursts. She clutched at her toga, crumpling it up in her hand, and the fabric felt soft between her fingers but the feeling of her fingers digging into her abdomen didn't.

Things became foggier, then. She didn't remember finding her way to a town, just knew she was in one sometime later. She didn't remember talking to police officers, but knew that she was standing in a room with them. A short time after that, she was laying down in a bed, exhausted but unwilling to fall asleep, even as the pull of it tried to tug her under.

Night turned into day and nobody came for her.

#####

"Is it done?"

"It's done."

The Doctor had no desire to be in this room. Not when he still had to find out why Anna hadn't shown up in the three months since she'd vanished from the console room without a trace, and her connection with it. He'd figured she'd wanted space after everything that had happened at Pompeii. Goodness only knew how hard it was for him to stand by and watch all those people die, the fact that she was an all-powerful being and still had to stand by and watch them die had to be even harder.

Of course, he hadn't nearly been as level headed in the beginning. When she'd first teleported out, he'd nearly had a hearts attack, flashing back to what had happened the last time that had happened. It was made all the worse when her connection had up and vanished. He'd had to talk himself down from sending out a full on search party, finally convincing himself that she'd probably just needed some space.

But, as time dragged on and he didn't hear a word from her, he did start to worry. Two weeks passed and he finally admitted that perhaps something was wrong. He made himself promise one more trip before he launched a full scale investigation into her disappearance.

Then, the Family had happened.

It would've been so easy not to do what he'd done, instead simply trapping them and being done with it so that he could search for Anna. But, he couldn't. Every fiber of his being knew that Anna wouldn't want that. So, he'd changed into the widower John Smith (because apparently the Tardis had prepared the contingency plan that Anna wouldn't be coming back in the three months).

The _stupid_ widower John Smith, who'd had to go and fall in love with another woman.

He didn't blame Donna for not being able to stop him. She was his 'sister by marriage' after all. Why would he discuss his budding romance with the supposed sister of the woman he'd been married to before she'd died quite suddenly? Besides which, things had happened all so quickly. He doubted Donna would've been able to do anything, even if he had told her.

It didn't mean that this didn't make this any less hard than it was.

Poor Joan, unaware of any of this, spoke as she looked out the window, seemingly unable to look at him. He didn't blame her. "The police and the army are at the school. The parents have come to take the boys home. I should go. They'll have so many questions. I'm not sure what to say."

She made the mistake of looking at him and he cleared his throat as he frowned, looking down at the ground before he looked away.

"Oh, you look the same," she said, sounding surprised when they both knew she wasn't. "Goodness, you must forgive my rudeness. I find it difficult to look at you. Doctor. I must call you Doctor. Where is he? John Smith?"

It wasn't Joan's fault, either, and it was for this reason that he didn't run from the room as he so wanted to, answering her question.

"He's in here somewhere."

"Like a story." There was a brief pause between them before she continued, "Could you change back?"

He cleared his throat, once again looking down. A split second passed where he considered lying to her, just to make it easier.

He'd never know why he didn't.

"Yeah," he said, softly. "Yeah, I could."

"Will you?"

He shook his head, opening his mouth to answer, but he cleared his throat again.

"You have dreams about him. Your… husband. Coming home to you."

"Don't," she said, sharply.

He looked up at the matron. "It isn't just a dream for me. Anna is alive somewhere. That's all that I'm saying is that I won't change back, because she's out there waiting for me to find her, and I've got to, and I'm sorry for that. I'm sorry this is so hard for you, and-"

"I'm sorry as well," she told him, quietly, "because your apologies mean very little to me."

"Why?"

Her face was set as she looked out the window. "Answer me this. Just one question, that's all. If the Doctor had never visited us, if he'd never chosen this place on a whim, would anybody here have died?"

It didn't matter that he loved Anna more than anything. Hearing those words from a woman that he'd grown to care quite a lot about in a short amount of time still hurt some part of him very deeply.

Her next words were just the last nail in the coffin.

"He was braver than you in the end, that ordinary man. You chose to change. He chose to die." There was a pause between them before she quietly finished. "You can go."

He raised his eyebrows listlessly before he turned from the room, leaving Joan-... Matron Redfern behind, trying not to listen to the way she cried after he closed the door behind him.

#####

Donna was waiting for him at the Tardis.

"How was she?"

"Time we moved on."

"About that, I asked around town, to see if anybody here matched Anna's description. Thought maybe she'd popped in during the fighting last night."

His hearts were fighting to jump out of his throat. "And?"

"Nothing," she said. "I'm sorry."

If it was any consolation, she meant it now as much as she'd meant it the first time he'd asked after he'd woken up. Just like then, he tried to conceal how much disappointment he was feeling. Judging by the look on her face, he was failing again.

"Right then," he said, nodding back to the Tardis. "Like I said, time we moved on."

"You know, I'm sure there's a good reason she's not returned yet. She's Anna. Way you described her, she's like a god or something, right? Besides, it's not like she can get hurt. Apparently. I still don't understand, really. I mean, how can one person-"

"Doctor. Donna."

He whirled around to see Timothy Latimer standing behind him. He hadn't been properly aware in the watch, but he'd been aware enough to know that Tim had kept him safe when the time had come, the young boy risking his life to save the time lord he didn't even know.

"Tim Timothy Timber," he said, a huge smile on his face. Anna could wait a few more moments. This was one of the only proper goodbyes he actually wanted to make.

"I just wanted to say goodbye. And thank you. Because I've seen the future and I now know what must be done. It's coming, isn't it? The biggest war over."

"Just because it's coming doesn't mean you have to fight," Donna pointed out, and past the concern, his hearts swelled with pride.

"I think we do."

"But you don't, though. It's not like all the school drills. It's a proper battlefield, with proper guns, and proper soldiers. It's dangerous, Tim."

"So is traveling around with him, but that doesn't seem to stop you."

"Oh, come here," Donna said, quickly wrapping Tim up in a hug. "Promise me you'll take care of yourself, all right? And eat something. I swear, you're thinner than this one, and he's already thin as a rail."

"Oi," he said, to the friendly jab. They were smiling as they pulled away, and Donna took a step back. The Doctor spoke. "Tim, I'd be honored if you'd take this."

Of course he meant his words, but there was also the small matter of Tim needing it to survive the battlefield on that terrible day. He'd seen the vision, the same as Tim had, of that specific version of events. Saving his life was the least he could do after everything he'd done.

When he grabbed the fob watch from his hands, Tim looked down at it before he looked back up at the Doctor. "I can't hear anything."

"No, it's just a watch now. But, keep it with you, for good luck."

He looked down at the watch again, seeming to be debating something. After a moment, he looked up at the Doctor.

"She's in a hospital."

He felt his hearts barely drop.

"Who?"

"Anna," he said. "She's in a hospital somewhere, and she's… scared."

He didn't know if it was because his connection with Tim had somehow strengthened his abilities or if it was because he'd been so lazer focused on Anna that it had just passed on to Tim, but he knew that Tim wasn't wrong.

"Scared?" Donna asked. "Of what?"

"I don't know," Tim said. "That's all that I know. I'm sorry."

"That's more than enough," he said, nodding. "Thank you, Tim." He turned back to the Tardis, dashing in, before he stuck his head back out, looking at Tim. "You'll like this bit."

He never could resist showing off.

It didn't work so well when the Tardis refused to take off, and he quickly ran through all the ways he could make her, but none of them were working.

"Come on, come on!"

"What's wrong? Is it because it was dormant for so long?"

"No, it's back up to full power, it's just refusing to take off. Come on, think, think- Oh. _Oh._ Donna, are you absolutely sure nobody matching Anna's description was seen in town last night?"

"I'm sure. Spent about three hours questioning people in the village."

He frowned, looking over at her. "The village?" he asked. "But you can't have. The village got destroyed last night in the bombings."

"I thought so, too, but I went back this morning and everybody was okay. Confused, yeah, but everybody was fine."

He felt his hearts leaping in his chest and he let out a whoop of joy.

"Doctor, I don't understand, why're you celebrating?"

"Don't you see, Donna? The only way they could've all been saved was if Anna had been here, shielding them from the blast!"

"She saved them?"

"Oh yes!" he shouted. "Come on, we've to find her!"

He was only focused on his bruised ego for a second when he saw that Tim was still sitting outside, waiting for the bit he was supposed to have liked. He was especially distracted from his bruised ego when he realized that Tim was _still_ sitting there, because it meant that he also had the added advantage of a psychic to help look for Anna, cutting his time in _half._

"Tim Timothy!" he repeated. "I've a job for you."

#####

How long had it been since she'd slept, she wondered? She stared out the window, biting her thumbnail as she tried to recall the last time that she'd slept, actually slept, slept as a human, but she couldn't manage it. Maybe it was because the windows kept dancing in shape, elongating before becoming shorter once more. She frowned as she reached a hand out to trace the pattern, still staring at it.

"How're we feeling today, miss?"

"Not great," she said, quietly, though part of her was terribly confused, and her stomach hurt something fierce, and also, the rest of her was kind of ache-y and her feet hurt as well and it just, it wasn't a great time for anybody.

"Would you mind if I changed your bandages?"

"Not at all," she said, her eyebrows raised as she continued to stare out the window.

It was for this reason that she missed the fact that it was the Eleventh Doctor who currently stood at the end of her bed, changing the dressing on her feet (well, that, and he'd donned a northern accent). In fact, she missed him the entire night, blending in with the hospital staff to make sure that she was okay. He wasn't surprised that she had. He'd watched her the entire night and she hadn't gotten any sleep, no matter how much she'd started to fall asleep and had to shake herself awake.

It had been so tempting to walk over to her and gently nudge her into a sleeping direction, but he remembered the state he'd found her in and knew he couldn't. Besides which, this Anna wasn't coherent about what had happened. Keeping her in a sleep deprived state after she hadn't been in one in years wouldn't let her be coherent until she was with him, and could therefore process what she'd done in a safer environment, with the man that she loved.

The only thing that he could do for her now was practice actual modern medicine and make sure the damage on her feet wasn't getting infected until it could be healed.

He glanced down at his watch and his eyes widened. He quickly finished up bandaging her and got out with literal seconds to spare as his past self swirled into the medical ward, finding her and feeling so much relief at the fact that Anna was alive, even if she was in a hospital and he'd no idea why.

A suit and tie blocked her view of the window and she frowned, trying to look around it before she realized that it was actually a face that was kneeled down in front of her. She squinted her eyes at it, trying to make sense of what she was seeing. It was especially confusing when their hand was suddenly on her face.

"Anna, hey, it's me," the person said quietly.

"Hello, me-"

She broke down sobbing and it took her brain a moment to catch up that it was because the Doctor was in front of her, and that's why she'd suddenly launched herself at him to hug him for all that she was worth.

He'd found her and he was coming to take her home.

#####

She had a dream, then. They were walking through the forest together, hand in hand. It wasn't a bad dream. Nothing attacked them, nothing came out of nowhere and scared the ever living daylights out of her. But, something was still wrong. No matter how much she tried to turn and look at him and talk to him, she couldn't.

They walked side by side and never said a single word.

#####

When she awoke, she was starving.

That was the first thing she registered, her hunger burning a hole in her stomach. She only had a chance to open her eyes before she bolted up, moving to the kitchen.

"Anna- woah, hey, Anna!"

She didn't respond, focused on her quest for food. When she got there, she was vaguely aware that Donna was there, the smell of something burning coating the air. She ignored her and quickly went to the fridge, opening it and pulling out various things. She registered that she took three bites of an apple, barely peeled a banana before she ate that, and pulled out a pie looking substance before she dove into that too, eating it with her hands.

She was breathing hard when she was done, and she turned back to look at the pair of them, her eyebrows raised at the look on their faces.

"What?" she asked, around her mouthful of pie.

Donna looked vaguely disgusted but the Doctor just looked concerned.

Her eyes widened and she pointed at him, the apple still in hand as she shouted, "Ha! I can't feel you!"

"I mean you could at least swallow before you talk, Anna," Donna said, but the Doctor frowned at her statement.

"Sorry, what?"

She swallowed the pie in her mouth before she repeated the sentence. "I can't feel you, _either_ of you, emotions, nothing, _nada_! Oh my _god_ is this how normal people feel? They don't have anything but their own emotions to contend with? Seriously? This- this is great," she said. "My _goodness_ I feel _so_ unburdened!"

She turned back to the fridge, humming as she continued to root around for food.

"But also, _starving_. Completely and utterly- _oh my god_!" she shouted, and she turned back to look at the Doctor. "Dominos. Can we get Dominos- I want _pizza_. And cinnamon twists. And, like, soda, _oh my goodness I want soda_." she whined, leaning against the fridge as she looked up at the ceiling. Her stomach growled and she got back to the task at hand, looking at the Doctor. "Can we? Please?"

"Are you seriously not seeing the facial expression that I'm sending you right now?" the Doctor asked.

"No," she said. "I'm starving and not having to feel people's emotions right now, are _you_ not seeing _that_? _Seriously_?" she asked, exaggerated and sarcastic. "Oh my goodness, seriously though," she said, taking a bite of the apple. "Dominos. Now. Like, ten minutes ago." She started to walk past him with her pilgrimage in hand, but he quickly held his hand out, his eyebrows raised. "Oh," she said. "You aren't happy."

"We need to talk."

She raised her eyebrows before her stomach growled again. "Okay, yeah, we can, just, seriously, I _need_ food, like, _need, need_ food."

"You've got food in your hand," he accused her.

"Yeah, but it's not _Dominos_ food. This is the first time in _ten years_ that I've had a craving. Please?" she asked him. "Pretty please?"

He let out an aggravated sigh, searching her, before he rolled his eyes up to the ceiling. "Fine," he said.

" _Yas_ , thank you, thank you, thank you!" she said, starting to rush past him. He reached out and grabbed her arm.

" _But_ , you answer questions on the way."

"Like _what_?"

"Like, why aren't your feet healing anymore?"

She raised her eyebrows, looking down as she picked up her feet and turned them over and over. "They look fine to me."

"But they weren't and I had to use actual healing cream. Care to share why that is?"

"I can't heal anymore," she told him, taking a bite of her apple as she looked up at him innocently.

His mouth fell open and he searched her. After a moment, his mouth closed and he stood up taller, putting his hands in his pockets. "All right, come on," he said, though he wasn't looking at her anymore.

"But I don't understand," Donna said. "How'd you mean-"

"Donna, why don't you see if you can't make something for Anna?" he asked, but Anna was already walking from the room, too excited at the prospect of Domino's pizza to really care.

#####

"So, you can't heal anymore?" he asked, casually as she sat down at the jumpseat, stacking her food around her as she continued to eat.

"No, but can I just say, apples are the best thing since sliced bread," she told him.

He made a humming noise. "Why is that?"

"Because apples are just the right amount of crispy while still being juicy. It's great," she told him.

He hummed before he looked over at her. "And your healing? Why can't you do that anymore?"

"Why would I be able to- Oh, I see where the confusion- Okay, yeah, I can't do a lot of things anymore. Well, can't, I technically _can_ , my powers are just turned off right now."

"Come again?"

"Well, yeah," she said, taking another bite of the apple. "After what happened in Pompeii-"

"And what happened in Pompeii?" he asked her.

"A fight," she said, casually. "Future you came and _royally_ forked up my day, so-"

"Forked?"

"Nicer way of saying the f word," she told him, crossing her legs as she leaned forward. "But yeah, so-"

"You've never had a problem with saying it before."

"I didn't feel like saying it now, _gosh_ , what's with the third degree?"

"Anna would know," he said, and she frowned as she watched as he looked down at his console casually. "But, then again, you aren't Anna, are you?"

His last two words were accompanied by him flipping a switch in a very dramatic fashion.

The console room zapped away. In the blink of an eye, she was suddenly staring at a room with four walls. Her stomach protested this as she stood, knowing that she was not, in fact, about to get Dominos.

It was moments later that the Doctor came into the room, his hands in his pockets. He was cheerful on the outside but raging on the inside.

"I told you I would answer your questions after I got Dominos!" she whined at him.

"Enough with the Dominos-"

"It won't be enough with the Dominos until I _get_ my Dominos."

"I said _enough_."

The cheer was starting to disappear, the storm more upfront.

She held up her hands. "Ooh, is that supposed to be scary? Look at me I'm the Doctor I'm using my scary voice?"

"It'll be more than just a voice if you don't tell me what happened to Anna."

"Hm, well, let's see, _I_ teleported out of the console room before _I_ teleported back in what was supposed to be two seconds later, one second later, but turned out to be two freaking months, two and a half, plus whatever time it took for you to run into the Family. Tardis and I had a little talk, and then, well, yeah. Shut off my powers, for now."

He searched her, storm still brewing, but there was a part of him that seemed to be believing her. "Why would you do that?" he asked her.

"Reasons," she told him, simply, stuffing her hands in her pockets.

"You're going to have to do better than that, Anna."

"Oh, am I going to have to do better than that, _Doctor_?" she asked him. "Am I going to have to _bow down to your will_ less I be stuck in this room for the foreseeable future?"

"You can't heal, Anna! You could die! So, yes, Anna, you're going to have to do better than that-"

"I could always die!" she told him. There wasn't upset in her tone. She wasn't upset. It was actually strangely freeing. "I could always die, but I would've come back-"

"Exactly!" he shouted at her. "Exactly, you would've come back, and now? Anna, how do you not see this as a problem?"

"Because it isn't," she told him. "Because I will still come back."

"You just said that your abilities are off," he told her.

She raised her eyebrows, smiling as she bit her bottom lip. She gently swung her leg out. "I'm not answering anymore questions until you let me out of this room."

"You're not a prisoner, Anna. I just need some questions-"

"You're right, I'm not," she told him, raising her eyebrows higher. "You're letting me out of here, right now."

He raised his own eyebrows. "Or what?" he asked her. "It's not like you can just teleport out of here, so what are you going to do?"

"Sit here quietly until you let me out," she informed him, as if it were obvious.

He ground his teeth together before he let out an irritated, "Fine." The sonic came out of his pocket before he sonicked an invisible panel on the side.

She nodded her head in thanks before she hopped up, walking out of the room.

"We still need to talk about this, Anna."

"Oh, I'm well aware of that," she told him, making her way to the console room. "But what happened isn't going to change and you can wait ten minutes while we get Dominos."

"Why is your need for pizza more important than my need for answers?" he asked her.

"Because I'm not dead, I'm healthy and alive, and I'm having a craving. It's not like I'm saying no, I'm just saying that I want pizza, what part of that is so hard to understand?" she asked him, turning to look back at him.

"The part where you turned off your powers," he said, before he raised his eyebrows. "Remember that bit?"

"Sort of hard to forget, considering that I was there." She nodded at the console. "Go on. Pilot us to the pizza."

He frowned, searching her. "You know how to fly the Tardis. Why can't you do it yourself?"

It was then that everything came crashing down around her.

Perhaps it was shock that had allowed her to be so carefree, or maybe it was simply the fact that she was having a physical need for the first time in ten or so years that made it so easy to forget what the words, 'I turned off my powers,' actually meant.

She stared at the floor, a quiet horror racing through her that was about to get much louder.

"Oh no," she said, quietly. "Oh no, oh no, what did I do, what did I do? No, no, no, oh my goodness, _no_!"

She didn't realize that she'd reached out and grasped the Doctor's shirt until he was holding her wrist.

"Anna, it's okay, it's okay, just calm down, tell me what happened," he told her, quietly.

She shook her head, already hyperventilating. "I-I- I turned my powers off, because-because the Tardis said-"

"Anna, breathe," he tried, now grasping her elbow and her wrist.

"-said that I-I only trust you with the training wheels on," she gasped in a breath before she let out in a sob, "and she was _right_."

"What does that mean?" he asked.

She sucked in a breath before she spoke. "That-that I only trusted you because I knew I had-had the power to walk-walk away at a moment's notice, I only _trusted_ you because I had _control, no_ ," she sobbed, miserably.

"Okay, okay, sh, come here, come here," he said, quietly. He pulled her in and hugged her for everything he was worth, letting her sob into his shirt. When the sobs had died down a little, he spoke, gently pulling her back so that he could cup her face in his hands. "You can just undo it, right?" he asked. "Turn your powers back on?"

She sobbed, shaking her head. "No," she said, the misery she was feeling reflected in her tone. She sucked in a shuttering breath before she spoke. "Not until I die, then my-my powers will-will automatically come back in."

She didn't know what possessed her to do it (or why the Doctor loosened his grip so that she could) but she found herself throwing herself to the floor, landing on her butt before she shook her head.

"I'm an _idiot_ , I'm a freaking moron, what the _hell_ did I _do_?" she asked, shaking her head as she gently rocked back and forth, sobbing.

"Anna, please," he said, kneeling down in front of her. "Please tell me that you aren't serious, that you don't really have to _die_ for your powers to turn back on again."

"Well did you want me to _lie_ to you?" she shouted at him, before she put her face in her hands, distraught.

"Okay, Anna, Anna, I need you to look at me."

She shook her head. "I don't need to do anything-"

"Anna, _look at me_."

But, Anna was not deterred.

"Oh what?" she shouted, standing up as she turned away from him. "You think because you use your big scary voice that I'll just bow down to your commands? _Screw you_!"

"Anna, you're in shock," he tried. "Now, I know that this is hard, but you can't run from this. The only thing that'll help this is to talk this through with me, to figure out-"

"You think you know that this is hard? That talking will help? Big freaking surprise, the Doctor comes swooping in saying that he and only he knows best. You have no idea what you're talking about, so don't pretend that you do. You have no idea how hard this is," she said, and she still didn't look at him. "I had all that power and I turned it off why? Because a freaking machine told me that _I didn't love you enough_." She whirled around on him and shouted at him with her full body. "Well, guess what? _Screw. Both. Of you_!"

She whirled back around to see that Donna was standing in the doorway of the kitchen. She looked so completely unsure, but surprise lit up her face when she saw that Anna had turned around.

"Oh, hey Donna," Anna said, casually as anything. "That for me?"

Donna looked back uncertainly at the Doctor before she nodded. "Yeah, yeah, I-I can't cook to save my life so I thought a PB and J would do. Not pizza, mind, but-"

"No, it's great, thank you," she said, before she took it from Donna's hand and walked down the hall.

By the time she'd gotten to her room, half the sandwich was eaten. The anger came surging back and she threw the sandwich at the wall as hard as she could. She was shocked when one of the sides stuck to it, before she entered her room, slamming her door shut behind her.

It was like all that she was was _made_ of anger. She ran her hands through her hair, wanting to tear it out, before she grabbed the first thing she could from the floor, which happened to be a combat boot, and threw it as hard as she could at the mirror.

It shattered, and she watched as the pieces crumbled, her reflection crumbling with it.

Pretty soon, she was crumbling, too.


	22. Chapter Twenty Five

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Quickly losing motivation for this story. I honestly like had such a different plan for this story and writing it on the fly is just taking it's toll. What might end up happening is that I get to the end of this story and then start posting chapters, instead of writing on the fly and just hoping for the best. That would mean that I'd probably end up posting like a month from now, but then post for sure every day. I guess it also depends on if real life starts back up again (i.e. the quarantine ending) but we'll see.  
> Also, this is a fairly short chapter that ties in with chapter 24, but is it's own separate chapter. It also doesn't have a chapter title.  
> I still don't own Doctor Who

Not enough time had passed before she heard a knocking on the door. In fact, about three minutes had passed, and she was still a sobbing mess.

"What?" she called out, angry as all get out.

"Anna, let's just talk about this. We can figure this out."

She didn't hear the rest of what he was about to say. Instead, she stood up, racing to the door, before she swung it open, full force.

"Figure what out?" she asked him, nearly shouting at the top of her lungs. "There is nothing to figure out. I turned off my powers, and that's freaking that! There is nothing to figure. Out!"

After a moment, he raised his eyebrows, his hands clasped behind him. "Feeling better?" he asked.

For a second, all that she could do was open and close her mouth, she was that angry.

"Seriously," he said. "Is it helping you to feel better by shouting at the top of your lungs? Because, if so, please, continue," he told her. "But, if you're finished with that, I think I might have a solution."

All of her anger dropped out of her at once. "I'm sorry, what?" she asked, frowning.

"A solution," he repeated. "Come on."

He turned his back and walked off, and she followed after him, confused.

"It's… been three minutes, what possible-"

"I know, I'm getting a bit slow in my old age," he said, and she frowned.

"That's not funny," she said.

"Oh, so you're the only one allowed to poke fun at my old age, now?" he asked, looking back at her as he raised his eyebrows.

She shook her head and stopped where she was, standing in the middle of the hall.

"You're missing the point."

"Which is?"

"You're not… respecting my wishes," she said, not sure where the words were coming from but knowing that they were true. "I did this for a reason, and you can't just…" she frowned. "Can you turn my powers back on? Is that what you're saying?" she shook her head before he could answer. "No, you know what, that's not the point, the point is, you're not respecting what I want."

"Which is to remain powerless?" he asked her. "Unable to help yourself or anybody else?"

She raised her eyebrows before she nodded. "Yeah, great, glad we both agree that I'm utterly useless without my powers."

His eyes widened in realization as she turned away, starting towards her room. "No, Anna, that came out- you know what I mean!" he said, rushing after her. "You can't save people like you could if you don't have your abilities, like sending people to the alternate dimension, Anna, just wait, please."

She heaved out a sigh before she turned to look back at him, stopping close to her door.

"I'm sorry for saying it like that," he started, quietly. "You're Anna. You can obviously still help people, including yourself. I just- You could die, now, Anna, and I've no interest in ever seeing that come to pass."

"If I died-"

" _When_ ," he corrected her, his eyebrows raised. "Because this isn't an _if_ anymore, Anna, this is a _when,_ and _when_ you die, I will be forced to carry your broken body back to the Tardis and hope harder than anything I have ever hoped for that you'll come back to me."

"I would come back," she insisted.

"How long?" he asked. "Weeks? A month? In this state, how long would it take for you to come back to me?"

"I mean, probably instantly," she told him. "No longer than it's ever taken before, and it'll take less time now because I've had my powers for some time."

He frowned. "How'd you mean, less time…"

Realization lit up his face.

"Now… Oh, Anna. I never asked, did I? How did you utilize your full abilities, before?"

She frowned. "I'm not sure how that's relevant-"

"Because I'm fairly certain that you just said you died the first time it happened, and apparently, it took some time for you to come back. What happened?" he asked. "Had they already buried you? Or-"

He started to ask another question but cut himself off as realization once again crossed his face. She spoke before he had a chance to.

"No, it wasn't-it wasn't by dying, that isn't the point, though-"

His whole face turned down into a frown. "Hold on, you're telling me that you could turn your powers back on via other means besides dying?"

"No," she told him. "Because _that_ literally took me _seven years_ , and I'm not keen for a repeat experience." She shuddered at the memory of it, at the memory that her life had been leading up to that point. "No," she repeated.

"Okay, then," he said, slowly, his eyebrows once again raised. "Back to my solution, then. Come on."

"No," she said, but she was more certain as she said it this time. "I've already said, I did this for a reason. I'm not turning them back on because I'm scared at the first sign of this _actually_ happening."

"What about me, then?" he asked. "What about doing this because I'm scared? I'm terrified to lose you Anna."

"How many times do I have to tell you that I will come back to life? Because I will, over and over again, until you-"

"You've no idea what it's like, living a life as long as mine," he said, and she raised her eyebrows.

"Fair point…?"

He acted as if she hadn't spoken. "Surrounding myself with people who don't have a life span as long as me, one of three things happens: First, they leave me to live out the rest of their lives. Two, I leave them so that they _can_ live out the rest of their lives. Or three, I get to stand over their broken bodies, knowing that I've failed them, again." He shook his head. "You can't be one of the people that I failed, Anna. You can't. I won't let you."

She frowned. "Hold on, are you this traumatized every time I die? Having to stand over my- Doctor, why didn't you _tell_ me?"

"That's not the point-"

"That's _entirely_ the point! We talk, but we never _say_ anything to each other. We share adventures and experiences but we don't really share ourselves. Maybe the important things, but never about our past or our fears, and I'd call those pretty important, too," she laughed, " _especially_ considering where we are. Do you know _why_ we're standing in this hallway, right now? Because your future self pointed out that I wouldn't give up my powers, _for you_ , and I was so _scared_ that you were right that I let the Tardis, of all beings, talk me into turning off my powers, _for you_." She shook her head. "Which is a fear just as unfounded as you being afraid of my _dying_ , permanently."

"Hold on, hold on, back up, when did you see my future self?" he asked.

She raised her eyebrows, about fifty percent certain that would've been a feelings moment had she been having feelings.

"That's not-that's not the point-"

"Oh," he said, and the wheels in his head seemed to be turning. She didn't know if that was a good or a bad thing. "Pompeii. You… when we split up to look for Foss… Street… Oh. _Oh_." He looked back at her, sadness and pain etched on his face. "That wasn't just a nightmare, was it? It was a potential timeline that somehow happened and you reversed. Oh, I'm a moron." Bitterness swept his face, next. "What else did my future self say? What other _horrible_ things did I tell you _once again_ , what was _so bad_ that you _actually_ walked up to me and gave me back the ring?"

She felt surprise and dread run through her in equal measure. It almost choked her, the emotions were so strong. That was partially due to the state she was in, but it was also because she was genuinely terrified right now.

She licked her lips, raising her eyebrows before she shook her head. "It doesn't-"

He shook his head, that bitterness now coupled with an anger. "Don't tell me that this doesn't matter, Anna, it _does_. Because I have said some fairly horrible things to you in the past. I told you to _undo it_." Her heart leapt in her chest, confusion and desperation starting to race through her. Shit. Shit, what was he saying? "But, you didn't leave me then. So, it must've been something… It must've been something truly _horrifying_ to make you leave me-" His eyes widened and he searched her. She was still breathing harder than normal, her heart nearly pounding right out of her chest. "That was the paradox," he said. "After-after that, it just up and disappeared, you rewrote time because of that paradox- why did you come back, Anna? Why do you keep coming back to me, after I say the worst things about you? Anna, I am- I am sorry, I am so sorry, for whatever I said to hurt you, for however badly I hurt you, for- for-" he shook his head, looking off in the distance.

Resolve seemed to cement within him and he nodded, looking back at her.

"I respect your decision," he said. "If you don't want to turn your powers back on, then I won't push you to. This was your choice, your decision. I'm just sorry that my hurting you was what made you do it."

She raised her eyebrows, seemingly coming back to herself.

"So you're not cross with me?" she asked, in an incredibly small voice.

"What?" he asked. "No, what _for_?"

"For-for leave-leaving you in the first place," she said, and her mouth was incredibly dry.

A different kind of realization crossed his eyes. He got calmer then, more reassuring as he barely smiled, shaking his head.

"Of course not," he told her, and she watched as he leaned up against the wall, his ankles and arms crossed. "Whatever I said to you to make you leave-"

"But I didn't- that was a _choice_ that I made," she told him. "You didn't _make_ me do anything."

"Except that, whatever I said to you, it had to have been a hell of a thing for you to straight up walk away the way that you did. Not much can do that, Anna. Not even my telling you to undo your saving the lives of _so many people_ in this universe because I was a little _scared_ made you even _consider_ it. So, whatever it was, it must've been a truly horrible thing, and I'm so sorry for that. I'm sorry for how I hurt you, for doing the one thing that finally made you walk out of my life, forever."

He raised his eyebrows.

"Except you didn't walk out of my life forever, and I'm not sure- I'm _terribly, terrifically grateful_ that you didn't, I'm just not sure why you didn't," he said. "I'm not entirely sure that I understand the situation, actually," at the look on her face, he quickly changed subjects. "But that's-that's not important, what _is_ important is that _you_ understand that I am in _no way_ cross with you. All right? I'm not angry with you, and I love you, and whatever you feel you need to do to- to- whatever it is that you did this for, whatever you need to accomplish this goal, then I'm onboard with it. I promise."

She raised her eyebrows listlessly. "Oh," she said, quietly. "This is what unconditional support feels like."

"Anna," he said, sadly, and he walked over to her. She let him, and didn't try to stop him when he wrapped her in a hug. In fact, she embraced it, hugging him back for all that she was worth.

After a few long moments, the Doctor cleared his throat. It rumbled through his chest, as did his next words. "Sorry, is that the sandwich that Donna made you, sticking there to the wall?" She didn't get a chance to respond before he continued. "I mean, blimey, I've had Donna's cooking before, but was one of her PB and _J's_ _really_ that bad?"

She started laughing into his chest before she devolved once more into tears.

"Okay, come on, come on, I've got you, come on."

He led her into her room where he laid her down on the bed before he joined her. They laid side by side while she cried it out, thinking about the future she was about to have as a normal person.

It was horrifying.

But, there was also a small part of her that she was surprised to find that was filled with a strange relief at the thought. For a while, she didn't have to be Anna Monroe, all powerful woman.

For a while, she could just be Anna.

Maybe that was enough.


	23. Silence in the Library

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: Hello all! Long time no see. I got a new job (as an essential worker!) so I've been busy working since the beginning of July. As such, I have not had time to write. Also, I'm diverting from Donna's canon story a little bit. We won't be seeing The Sontaran Strategem, The Poison Sky, or the Doctor's Daughter for sure *this* story. I'm still on the fence about the Unicorn and the Wasp. That might be an adventure that happens off screen because I honestly can't see Anna making changes (other than saving people but even then the way that she would save them would have little to no effect on the story itself). That being said, I'm thinking about replacing them with either original adventures or other episodes in the vein of Blink and Family of Blood (though I'm not taking ALL of Martha's adventures away from her).  
> Also, just a heads up, the next story will divert from canon, and I mean in a big way. I know that's why y'all are here, but I'm forewarning you that I'm making a HUGE change that a lot of you might not like. Just a warning.  
> ALSO, just ANOTHER heads up, quality on these next two chapters aren't great. Sorry in advance.  
> I still don't own Doctor Who.

Chapter Twenty Six: _Silence in the Library_

They'd picked up Donna (because it had been more than three minutes. Apparently, it had been a whole half hour since she'd run to her room crying, and she'd just been so wrapped up in herself that she hadn't even noticed). They were headed off for their next adventure when she noticed that the Doctor was looking at something on the psychic.

"What's it?" she asked him, dancing over to his side.

"What?" he asked, quickly concealing it before he smiled down at her. "Nothing, it's nothing, I was actually thinking, you know what? We haven't ever- and what a shame that is! The beach is canceled!"

"Where are we heading instead?"

"It's a surprise," the Doctor said.

When they got there, it wasn't a pleasant surprise like she was sure that the Doctor wanted it to be. It wasn't hard to guess, was it? Standing where she was, looking at the stacks and stacks of-

"Books!" the Doctor shouted.

They were in The Library.

#####

For a moment, it felt like Anna couldn't breathe. She couldn't think, she couldn't speak, she couldn't move.

Something in her connected that she wouldn't be able to help River as soon as she saw The Library. For a strange moment, she had a flash of Clara on the phone with Danny, _Shut up, shut up, shut up!_

_Is this how we talk to each other now…_

_I love you. And I'll never say those words to anybody ever again… That's sort of the headline… Sorry, I was just-_

She pictured Clara, her hand on her head, the other with the phone in her hand.

_-talking to Danny, can you put Danny-_

She tried to suck in a useless breath.

_-on the phone-_

"Anna?"

_-I'm sorry dear, I'm so sorry. The car, it just came out of-_

"Anna, what is it, what's wrong?"

_-nowhere-"_

She could picture Clara running down the street, stopping in the middle of it.

Looking at the last place that Danny Pink had ever existed.

"Oh my god," she whispered, or she thought she did, but she didn't hear herself say any words.

A calm snapped over her and she looked up at the Doctor, smiling, though she knew it sat wrong on her face. She imagined how mechanical it must look, then, how mechanical and wrong she must look, but she didn't care.

"We should- we should come back later," she said, nodding. "Yeah, we should-" she swallowed with some difficulty past the lump that had lodged itself in her throat. "-later, we should come back- we should-"

She felt the Doctor place gentle hands on her shoulders and it felt somehow strangely like a splinter. She didn't know how to describe it, just that they felt like something niggling uncomfortably beneath her skin.

"Whatever it is that's got you so frightened, we're already part of events," he told her.

She shook her head, her breath starting to be strange and wrong. "But we don't-"

"Yes, Anna, yes we do," he told her.

"Doctor, what-"

She felt a wild frenzied terror building up inside of her.

"But that's okay," he said. "That's okay, because you know what's about to happen, and you can tell me, and I can fix it."

She felt everything pause inside of her.

"You can fix it," she said, from numb lips.

_Save him. Bring him back. I don't care how many rules you have to break-_

"No," she whispered, quietly, looking down at the ground.

That wasn't how it went.

_I don't care about the rules. Save him. Bring him back-_

_Terrible thing. Just a terrible, terrible thing._

_It wasn't terrible._

_Sorry?_

"It was ordinary," she said, quietly. "Like stepping off a bus." Clara got her spoon from the dishwasher before she continued. "One second he was alive and then he wasn't, like stepping off a bus. People just went on with their lives and their ipods. He deserved better. And so did you."

_I don't deserve anything. Nobody deserves anything. But I am owed better._

"I am owed. Who owes you? Clara!"

"Clara?" the Doctor asked and she looked up at him, a smile on her face.

"Yes, Clara," she agreed. "Clara Oswin Oswald, Junior Entertainment Manager aboard the ship Alaska." She looked down at her hands, whispering. "Are you coming to get me?"

"Doctor, what's wrong with her?"

She heard someone shushing someone else and she shook her head. _Sh_ , she thought.

_They come at night._

_Who do?_

"Who did?" she asked herself quietly, looking down at her hands. "Who come at night?" she frowned. "I don't think that's the right show…" she whispered.

She heard a tiny whispered curse word before she looked up at the Doctor to see that he was nodding.

"Okay, yeah, we can- we'll get out of here, how does that sound?"

She felt relief fill her chest like a tidal wave and she nodded.

"Yep," she said. "Come on."

She turned back, about to step towards the Tardis-

"Anna?"

She'd flung her hand out and back before she realized what she was doing.

"The shadows," she said, looking down at the floor.

"Anna, it's all right, we'll get back in the Tardis. I can help you, it's all right."

She raised her eyebrows, feeling a shot of anger rushing through her, before she looked back at the Doctor.

"You're gonna get me back in the Tardis past the Vashta Nerada?" she questioned him, anger in her tone and her posture.

He, in the meantime, looked at her patiently. "Anna, it's all right. I know that you're confused, that you're getting a lot of information right now. I just need us to get back in the Tardis, and we can talk-"

His eyes widened before he looked down at the floor fully. In the next moment, and in a move that was too quick for her to see, he reached out and yanked her behind him.

"Doctor, what is it?" Donna asked. "What?"

"Something very not good," he said. "Run!"

The next two minutes were a blur of them running through The Library. She kept having flashes of the Doctor and Clara.

_Have I got your attention?_

_Yes._

_Good._

_No, Clara_ , he said, looking around himself. _Not good._

They kept running, even as the Doctor shouted for them to move faster, as Donna shouted that she was moving as fast as she could-

_Am I gonna see Danny like that? I don't want to see him like that._

_You're right, that's rubbish._ Who wants to watch their loved ones decay?

"Jammed-"

"Oh, for the love of-" she started, before she reached out, kicking at the weakest part of the wood and allowing them entrance to the little shop.

The security camera was floating in the middle of the room, but she immediately dismissed it, moving around the room to try to find… something. A computer, maybe?

"Oh. Hello. Sorry to burst in on you like this," she ignored the Doctor speaking, still looking for a computer for reasons she couldn't name. "Okay if we stop here for a bit- Anna, hold on, where are you-"

"Computer, I'm looking for a computer."

"What for?"

"I don't know, I'm thinking of finding it and working my way backwards," she told him.

_What are you doing?_

_I'm saving your life._

_No!_

"Anna, slow down-"

"There isn't time!"

_I couldn't let you die without knowing that you are loved by so many… but by no one more than me._

_River, you_ embarrass _me_.

She flinched at the remembrance before she finally found the terminal that she was looking for.

"Are either of you about to explain what's happening?"

"Anna, just listen to me," he said, grabbing her shoulders and turning her to look at him. She quickly fought him off, looking back at the terminal. "I know that you're confused, that there's a lot of information flying around in your head right now, but I can help you, Anna? Anna, what're you doing?"

She looked helplessly at the terminal. "I don't know how to turn it on," she told him, looking at him with an expression to match her tone.

"Okay," he said. "Okay, I can do that. I can do that, why don't you tell me what you need it for?"

"I've already said, I don't know," she told him, even as he took out his sonic screwdriver and started to sonic it.

"Okay, well, what were you saying before, next to the Tardis. Do you remember that? You said that we had to leave. Do you remember why?" he asked, barely glancing at her, still sonicking the terminal.

_River._

_Oh, you embarrass me!_

_River!_

_Next time, stick to the science stuff._

She shook her head, looking up at the Doctor. "We have to save her," she said, quietly. "And we can, we can, we've got time and I know what to do-"

She felt everything dropping out of her.

"Oh my god, I know what to do." She felt her whole face light up. "I know what to do! We need to get-get to the mainframe and the- storage, we just need enough storage, download, something- I don't know, but this could work!"

"Seriously, is someone going to tell me what's going on? Why did we run just then?"

"The Vashta Nerada," she said, looking over at Donna. "These are their forests. The-the pages, the books, they were harvested from the trees where the Vashta Nerada resided. If we can talk to them, communicate to them," she didn't notice the strange look that passed between Donna and the Doctor. "Then we can tell them that we'll all leave their forests if they give us time to get the survivors out of here, and we can do that! 4022 saved, well, and now, it's more like, what 4026 saved? Anita, Proper Dave, and one-"

She didn't get to finish saying her name. The door blew inward and she felt herself once again being pulled behind the Doctor, shielded from the blast. A moment later, Donna joined them, and Donna peaked out from behind the Doctor while the Doctor held Anna back from the new visitors, looking quite tall and regal and unafraid as he did so. One of them walked up to him before she took the darkness off of her visor. "Hello, sweetie."

"Get out."

"Doctor," Donna said, sounding surprised.

"All of you. Turn around, get back in your rocket, and fly away." The Doctor stepped away, towards the rest of the group, and River looked down at her and winked. She didn't even pause to think, wrapping her arms around River. River stilled for a moment before she hugged her back.

_Oh, Jim the Fish!_

_And how is he?_

_Still building his dam._

_Easter Island! They worshipped you there._

River pulled back from her, examining her.

"What's gotten into-" she started, before she furrowed her brows. She put her hands on Anna's face, gently caressing her temples. "You're young," she said, and Anna raised her eyebrows before she shook her head.

"So?" she asked.

"Oi!" the Doctor said, the vowel long and drawn out, before he stepped between her and River, River's hands sliding off of her face. "I just said, turn around and get back in your rocket."

"I heard you the first time," River said, almost amused. To the rest of the group, she said, "Pop your helmets, everyone. We've got breathers."

"How do you know they're not androids?"

"Because we aren't!" she said, dancing around to the center of the group. "Mr. Lux, need you to-"

"Who are you? Who are these people?" Lux asked. He turned to look at River, next. "You said we were the only expedition. I paid for exclusives!"

"She lied," Anna cut in. "Doesn't matter, the point is, I can save her, but I need your absolute cooperation."

"Save who?" he asked, as if he'd never heard anything more ridiculous in his entire life.

"Charlotte Abigail Lux."

At that, he blanched, his face completely losing all color. "How do you- but- you can't- you can't- who are you people?" he asked.

"I'm the woman who will save everyone here, but I need your total and complete trust and cooperation, and if you can't give me that, then…" she pointed around the room, counting them off. "At least three people will die here today, and that'll be- well, it won't be _on_ you, but you certainly won't have helped matters."

Mr. Lux surprised her. "I demand all of you leave at once!" he insisted. "The Library was built by my family and I have the right to-"

"You have a mouth that won't stop," River cut in, before she was speaking to Anna next. "You think there's danger here?"

She let out a growl, looking around. "This is taking too long," she said. "Anita, Proper Dave, I need you to set up a circle of lights, big as you can, wide as you can. Do you think you can do that?"

Proper Dave started to move but Anita froze. "But how do you know our names?" she asked.

"Oh, American! I forgot you're American, that's lovely, we're moving on, now, lights, be quick about it, River, Doctor, with me," she told them. "Donna, help with the lights, and Miss Evangelista, get the contracts for all us. Might as well, right?"

"I demand to know what's happening!" Mr. Lux very much _did_ demand. Not that she could blame him. Knowing what she knew about what this was to him and his family, she couldn't imagine she wouldn't be doing the same.

That didn't stop her from rounding on him. "One of two things can happen. Either I can fill you in on the fact that the Vashta Nerada overran this Library hundreds of years ago and that's why everyone disappeared and now they're here and in the dark we're finished, or, I can have a little powwow with my good friend River Song and my husband the Doctor and we can figure out a way to save all of your lives plus the 4022 people that were stored away on that fateful day when CAL put the Library under quarantine. Which would you prefer?"

"What are you talking about? What is she talking about?"

"Whatever it is, she seems to know a lot about it. Mister Lux, put your helmet back on, block the visor. Anita, unpack the lights. Proper Dave, make sure the door's secure, then help Anita. Other Dave, find an active terminal. I want you to access The Library database," she almost interrupted River but didn't, though she did grumble a little because it wasn't necessary and they were wasting time. "See what you can find about what happened here a hundred years ago. Pretty boy, Anna, you're with me. Step into my office."

"Professor Song, why am I the only one wearing my helmet?"

"I don't fancy you," she said, before she started to step off to the side. Anna started to turn back to look at the Doctor, to tell him that he was pretty boy, but she was surprised to see that he was already following her. Despite herself, she smiled.

"Think so highly of yourself?" she asked him.

"What?" he asked.

There was an obvious lack of amusement on his face, and it hit her then that he'd no idea who River was. He'd no idea why Professor River Song wasn't listening to his commands, and apparently, Anna's intricate trust of her wasn't doing much to help.

"How'd you know you're pretty boy?"

"Sorry, I'm- Oh, I'm pretty boy?" he asked.

She frowned, turning to look at him. "Who'd you think she was on about?"

"Pretty boy, Anna, with me, I said."

The Doctor grabbed Anna's upper arm, gently guiding her over. Ever the one to cover his bases, he turned back to the rest of the group. "The Vashta Nerada are an alien life form. They look like shadows and they hide in the dark, waiting for prey to stumble into the shadows so they can consume them, flesh and all, so don't let your shadows cross. Seriously, don't even let them touch. Any of them could be infected."

"How can a shadow be infected?"

But, the Doctor and Anna were too busy walking over to River's 'office' to answer him.

The Doctor and River sat down, the Doctor looking at her skeptically while Anna stood, dancing from foot to foot, hugging herself as she bit her bottom lip. When River pulled out The Diary, she closed her eyes, letting out a breath through her nose, before she rubbed at one of her eyes.

"River, I'm sorry, I'm so sorry, but we don't have time for this," she told her, looking down at River as she opened her eyes.

"To what, keep the timelines in-"

She shook her head. "He doesn't know who you are," she said, and River stopped at that, looking down at the book in her hands. "He's never met you before, and if I could've said that more delicately, I promise you, I would have, but we don't-"

"Have time?" she guessed, looking between her and the Doctor. River was upset. It was obvious. In her face, in her posture.

_So where does that leave us then? Jim the Fish?_

_Who's Jim the Fish?_

"So you haven't done any of it, then. Crash of the Byzantium? Picnic at Asgard? Ringing any bells?"

The Doctor looked between River and Anna. "So… she's someone from our future, then?"

" _Our_ future?" River asked, looking at Anna.

She let out a breath. "I've met you, once," she told her. "The Byzantium."

_In the dark, we're finished._

_Like what, for instance?_

_LIKE. ME. FOR. INSTANCE._

She remembered the look on River's face, so sad and so young and so hurt. Even through the television screen, she'd been able to feel that.

Luckily, that hadn't happened this time around.

Not so luckily, the look that was resting on River's face now was making up for that in spades.

"I'm sorry, I'm really sorry-" she started.

"Why?" she asked, putting her diary away. "Life of a time traveler. Knew it would be hard work, especially with you involved. All that extra knowledge makes it extremely difficult to pinpoint our timelines, considering how much you know versus how much you've actually lived. Or, how much you think you know, anyway."

She let out a huff of frustration. "River, that's still spoilers," she said.

The Doctor, in the meantime, focused on something else that River had said.

"How'd you mean, all that extra knowledge?" the Doctor asked.

Anna's eyebrows raised. "Oh," she said, quietly, the word leaving her lips. She shook her head, looking down at River. "What exactly have I told you?" she asked.

She zipped up her bag angrily. "Spoilers," she said.

The conversation was interrupted when they all heard the sound of the phone ringing.

"Sorry, that was me," Other Dave said. "Trying to get through the security protocols. I seem to have set something off. What is that? Is that an alarm?"

"Doctor?" Donna asked. "Doctor, that sounds like…"

"It is," he said, getting up and abandoning the strange conversation. "It's a phone."

#####

There she was. Charlotte Abigail Lux.

Anna quickly pushed everyone out of the way before she made it to stand in front of the screen.

"Hello," she said. "Sorry about the confusion. I'm Anna, that's the Doctor. We're in your Library, do you remember seeing us, before?"

Her eyes widened in understanding. "You are! You're in my library! The library's never been on television before. What have you done?"

She quickly held her hands up. "Nothing to be concerned about, really, just- Okay, here we go."

"What happened? Who was that?"

"Charlotte Abigail Lux," she said, grabbing the Doctor and River's arms. "And we still need to make a plan."

"Oh, what, can't you just automatically clean up any mess? Considering that you're _Anna Monroe_ , and everything?"

"I'm more curious about who _you_ are, and how you seem to know so much," the Doctor said.

"Like she said, I'm from the future. Your future," she said. "Know a lot of things about the both of you. Like, for example-"

"This doesn't. Matter," Anna said, starting to get impatient. "We need to make a plan to save the day."

"Great, then do," River said. "We'll be here, at your beck and call, as always."

She felt shock roll through her and she glanced between River and the Doctor, who had moved to partially stand in front of her.

"I don't _care_ who you are, _nobody_ speaks to my wife like that."

Pain, honest to goodness pain, crossed River's face. A moment later, she straightened up before she turned to look at Anna.

"He's right. I'm sorry," she said, and Anna felt baffled. "What do you need us to do?"

She raised her eyebrows before she shook her head. "I don't know yet," she said, looking between the two of them. "Like I said, the Vashta Nerada lay dormant for however long. These were their forests. Somehow, they-they activated, became conscious, whatever, and they started to attack the people. So, CAL did the only thing that it could do, which was save all 4022 people in the Library in her data core- that's _why_ I wanted a computer!" she said, looking at the Doctor. "I wanted a computer because I wanted to increase her-her memory, to do the download, to get all the people out, I don't…" she let out a frustrated breath. "I don't remember, I don't know, I can't remember how you did the thing that you did or why, I just know she didn't have the processing power to cleanly download everybody back to physical beings."

"But I don't understand, you keep saying Charlotte Abigail Lux and CAL, how do they relate?" the Doctor asked.

"Because she is CAL. His grandfather, Mr. Lux's grandfather, he wanted to preserve his youngest daughter because she was dying. He made her the mainframe, the-the data core, whatever," she made a frustrated noise. "I can't… remember, all of it, but it's something like that."

"Plug in a living mind into-" They were all startled when books began to fly off the shelves. "What's that? Did you do that?" he asked Other Dave. Other Dave shook his head, and the Doctor quickly started for the terminal.

"No, Doctor-"

River put her hand on her arm, stopping her from calling out to the Doctor. She looked at River, raising her eyebrows.

"I know how this works," she said. "And I know what you're trying to prevent. Are you completely mental, or have you just lost any semblance of sanity that you used to have?"

Anna raised her eyebrows.

"You obviously don't know what I'm trying to prevent, or you wouldn't be doing a thing to stop me. This is your life, River-"

"You don't think I don't know that?" River hissed at her. "From the way you're talking, and the fact that you weren't here when whatever this was originally took place, things ended up in total and complete chaos and the Doctor did what he always does: tries to sacrifice himself. I stepped in at the last minute and sacrificed myself instead." She searched her eyes, shaking her head as she looked at her in almost disgust. "You walk around playing _god_ like you've any _right-_ "

For the first time in a long time, she felt a rush of actual anger. "Don't you _dare_ ," she said, ripping her arm from River's grasp. "Don't you dare act like I don't walk a meticulous line when I do the things that I do. Don't you dare think that I only save those I want to save and act like people are pawns on a chessboard that I'm somehow winning. I'm _not_ ," she spat at her. "If you think that _this_ is what winning looks like then you know even less than you pretend to think you do, don't for _one second_ come at me like you know a thing about what it's like to be Anna _fucking_ Monroe." She searched her eyes, actually shaking with anger. "Am I making myself very clear- and why are you fighting this, anyway?" she asked her, confusion clouding some of the anger. "This is your life, I'm saving your life-"

"You're right," she hissed at her, and she was surprised by the anger blooming in River's eyes. "It is my life. You have no right to mess about in it like you own it, because you _don't_. My life belongs to me, and no one else, so before you get it into your head that you saving me is what I want, then think again." She searched her eyes. "Not everybody wants to be part of the Anna Monroe Show."

She could count the number of times that she'd actually gotten physical with someone, and hitting the Doctor in the other timeline had been one of them. The only thing she knew was that, in the next moment, she was seeing red.

The moment after that, she came back to the feeling of River's hand clasping her throat, Anna's arm pressed between them two of them, trapped. Both of them were breathing hard, electricity crackling in the air between them.

In the next moment, River had been forced to release her because the Doctor was standing in front of her, suddenly.

"You lay hands on my wife again and I promise it will be the last thing that you do," the Doctor threatened, his voice low.

"Tell your _wife_ not to _lay hands_ on _me_ and we won't have a _problem_ ," she spat back at him, even if Anna could hear the barely there shake that was present in her words.

"Walk. Away."

"Fine by me," River replied, in the same hostile tone, before she did, stalking off.

She saw River's form walking away, and the Doctor immediately turned to look at her, examining her throat with a critical eye, as if looking for bruises.

"I'm fine, I'm fine," she brushed him off. "We need to get down to the data core, see if we can-"

There was a scream.

#####

For a long moment, Anna was numb, staring at Miss Evangelista's corpse.

She could've saved her. She hadn't.

For the first time since she'd been here, she hadn't saved a person that she could've. At least, as far back as she could remember.

No, but there were days…

_There were many days, when these words could burn stars and raise up empires and topple gods._

_What does this say?_

_Hello Sweetie._

… back before she'd created the alternate dimension, when she was still traveling with Nine. She'd lost people.

But not people that she knew could be saved.

_I don't care about the rules. Save him. Bring him back. Or I swear-_

"You'll never step foot inside your Tardis again," she whispered.

"It's Miss Evangelista."

"We heard her scream a few seconds ago. What could do that to a person in a few seconds?"

"It took a lot less than a few seconds."

"It's my fault."

The words came tumbling out her dry mouth, and everyone turned back to look at her. She raised her eyebrows, starting to feel sick.

"Sorry, but it is."

"But how is this-"

"Hello?"

River pursed her lips, looking away. "Er, I'm sorry, everyone. Er, this isn't going to be pleasant. She's ghosting."

"She's what?"

"Ghosting," Anna repeated. "And it's my fault."

She started to walk away from the group, but the Doctor grabbed her hand, holding her steadfast. She didn't even look at Miss Evangelista, her eyes closing as she wished that the Doctor would release her so that she could walk away, far far away from here.

"Hello? Excuse me. I'm sorry. Hello? Excuse me."

"That's-that's her. That's Miss Evangelista."

"I don't want to sound horrible, but couldn't we just… you know?"

"This is her last moment. No, we can't. A little respect, thank you."

She grit her teeth, knowing that River's comment was directed at her. Like a petulant child, she turned to face the corpse she hadn't saved, sitting on the chair like some kind of mock throne, crownless as the day she was born.

"We just need to get to the data core," she whispered to the Doctor, urgently, anxiously. The Doctor looked down at her, his eyebrows raised, though concern was splashed across his face. "Then this can be over."

It would end, one way or another. The problem was, there was no one in that room who knew how it would end.

Not even Anna.


	24. The Midnight Forest

Anna woke up screaming.

She thrashed in the arms of whoever it was, trying to escape, trying to free herself, she had to, she had to-

"Anna, it's okay, it's okay, it's me, the Doctor, it's all right! It's all right, sh, there we are, there we are, sh… it was just a dream, sh…"

She shook her head, sobbing. "It wasn't just a dream."

It was a memory. The memory of the last time she was ever in The Library.

That day would haunt her for the rest of her life.

#####

"Oh, no, no, no, no, come on, what are you-"

Anna's eyes were glued open. She was forced to stare at River as she worked.

"Anna, Anna, hey, can you hear me- what did you do, Anna!"

She felt her face being moved and she looked up at the Doctor's face before he released her, looking up at River with anger and panic and mania in his eyes.

"She's fine," River said, gently. "Paralyzing lipstick. The only thing it does is paralyze the motor functions. She'll come out of it just as soon as this is done."

"That's my job, you can't-"

"Oh, so you and Anna are the only two allowed to save the universe now? So like you two, to hoard all the credit."

"This is not a joke. Stop this now, this is going to kill you! I'd have a chance, you don't have any."

"You wouldn't have a chance, and neither do I," River said.

"But Anna does."

She felt surprise leap in her chest.

"Did you just suggest sacrificing Anna in my place?"

"I trust her," he told River. "I trust her when she said that she wouldn't die permanently, and if you know her half as well as you seem to think you do, you know that's true. Let me help you hook her up, and we can-"

"Can what?"

She would've frowned if she could've. She could suddenly hear her own voice. How was that possible?

"Anna? Anna, I don't-"

"Well, I figured since you offered me up like a lamb for slaughter, I might as well do the decent thing and show up, right?"

"So… So you're River… then, yes? Yes, you're River, River Song, and you lived through it and that's how you know-"

"I'm a future Anna, actually. River never came back and punched you, I'm afraid, which means that I also kissed myself. An action worthy of Harkness, but hey, who's counting? My point being that I took River's place because she- well, I had to know that you trusted me when I said that I would come back to life. But, River doesn't have to die. Not here, not now."

"I don't understand."

"Ooh, say that again, I never get tired of that."

"So… So Professor River Song is a real person, somebody from my future, and you've taken her place because of something that needed to happen, but she is actually around here somewhere?"

"Yes," she agreed.

"Okay. Okay, good, great. So… so you've got your powers turned back on, so that means that you can hop out of there and-"

"Ooh, you were that close," she said.

"To what?"

"To understanding the situation. See, this moment in time is fairly delicate, and I'm not really willing to risk creating download space out of thin air if it means that all 4022 people aren't saved, you feel me?"

"Anna, no, what're you talking about? Stop this, we can-"

"We can what?" she repeated. "This is the way that it happened for me, and this is the way that it'll happen for her, and I'm sorry for how this'll hurt you, but you know, you just said that I would come back to life, so-"

"Time can be rewritten."

She heard the smile in her own voice. "It's funny, you know, the things that stick around, even when a new element is added to time. You said the same thing to River, that time can be rewritten. She told you that there was nothing that you could do, and you offered for the tenth time to do it, and she pointed out that if you died here, it would've meant she never would've met you. And you said, 'Time can be rewritten.'"

"Autodestruct in one minute."

"Do you know what she said? Not those times. Not one line. Don't you dare."

"Anna, this isn't funny, just get up, just fix this without dying."

"I have to die," she told him. "There's no other way for this to work."

"There's always another way!" the Doctor practically shouted at her. "That's what you said to me, that's what you constantly say to me, there's always another way, so find another way!"

"Not this time," she said.

"Why?"

"Because the universe demands a sacrifice. And, just this once, just this one time…"

"Five, four-"

"It doesn't have to be her."

"One."

There was a blinding white light. Somebody was screaming, or multiple people were screaming. And then, it was over.

Except, it wasn't anywhere near over.

Because Anna's head had slowly been falling back down to the position it had been in before the Doctor had moved it, which meant that Anna had to see her own corpse sitting lifeless and burnt, her gnarled and burnt hands fused to the cables they had plugged in the moment before her own death.

And, because the Doctor was feeling such grief, he didn't even think to move Anna's view away from her own burnt body, staring at the image that would haunt her dreams for years to come.

River came in moments later.

#####

"No, no, you idiot, what did you do, what did you-"

"No, don't, don't touch her!" the Doctor shouted, and River startled, looking back at the two of them. Her eyes landed first on Anna and then the Doctor. For a moment, she just stared at them. And then, she looked back at the lifeless body sitting in the chair before she turned back to the Doctor.

"Then who's this?" she asked.

"It doesn't matter, give me the screwdriver," he said, pointing at it.

"You said… her," River said, before she looked back at Anna, frowning as she looked down at her. She frowned even further, moving to kneel down next to her.

"She's-she's paralyzed, you- Anna, the future Anna, she disguised herself as you, something about keeping the timelines intact, it doesn't matter, hand me my screwdriver."

River, on the other hand, was knelt down in front of Anna, searching her eyes.

"So that was Anna, then," she said. "The future one."

Anna didn't understand why she was looking down at her as if she were mesmerized by what she saw.

"River-"

"I know, I heard you," she said. "Screwdriver." She wasn't paying attention to him, instead, gently caressing Anna's cheek. "This is early days for both of you, yes?" she asked.

"I don't know what that has to do with anything, River," he said.

"It's got to do with everything," River replied. "I could stop it. All of it, right here, right now. I could tell her everything, and it would never come to pass." She looked up at the Doctor, her hand stilled on Anna's cheeks. "That's what you're always saying, isn't it? That time can be rewritten? And where Anna's involved, that's double-y true. I can fix it. I can fix everything."

"The only thing that you'll be doing is potentially destroying the timeline," the Doctor said, quietly.

_Say it again so that I know you mean it._

_No._

_I'm not kidding, Doctor._

_Neither am I._

_I will do it!_

_River, my River, I don't think you will!_

"Whatever terrible thing that it is that's come to pass, the only thing you'll be doing by telling her is making it a thousand times worse-"

"You told me once, standing on a beach, that I absolutely should, that the words you tell me right now will mean nothing. That I should tell you everything the first chance I get. And now I can, right here, right now. I can fix it. I can fix all of it. And I promise you, you will thank me for it. Standing in the alternate timeline, with Anna by your side, you will thank me a million times over for what I'm about to do."

"You know what I am, River, and you know that I can feel the flow of time around me, what is, what must be, and what must never come to pass. River, this thing that you're trying to prevent, preventing it will break all of the laws of time. Believe me, neither of us will thank you for that."

"Even if it-"

Anna screamed.

Not the present Anna. The future Anna. The one who had just come back to life.

"River," Future!Anna got out, through haggard breaths. "River, you can't, you mustn't."

"So you're the only one who's allowed to change the fabric of the universe?" River asked. "You're the only one who's allowed to make life altering decisions for-"

"River," she begged her. "Berlin. Remember Berlin. What I said then."

"Berlin will never have to happen if you let me do this!"

"I'm sorry, River. I'm so, so sorry. But I can't let you."

"You don't get a choice."

Everything happened so quickly in the next three seconds. River stood in one fluid motion. She heard her blaster powering up. It wasn't a second later that River's legs vanished from view.

It wasn't a second later that Future!Anna vanished from view, too.

#####

"Any luck?"

"There wasn't anyone called Lee in The Library that day."

_Did you really think that would work on me?_

"I suppose he could have had a different name out here, but, let's be honest, he wasn't real, was he?"

"Maybe not."

_They're not sleep patches. They induce a dream state. Makes you very suggestible. I allowed the whole scenario to play out just as you planned._

"I made up the perfect man."

_I was curious about how far you would go._

"Gorgeous, adores me, and hardly able to speak a word."

_Well, now you know._

"What's that say about me?"

_Yeah. Now I know._

"Nothing," Anna cut in. "Because he was, in fact, real."

"Sorry?" Donna asked.

She nodded at the teleporter. "He'll be over there in a minute, if you want to stick around and see him."

"But how'd you- oh, never mind! Where is he?"

She shifted uncomfortably, the paralytic still washing out of her system. _Thanks, future Anna_ , she thought, sarcastically, before she shrugged. "I don't know," she said. "You and the Doctor're supposed to be having a conversation about, oh, how are you, are you doing all right, I'm always all right, is always all right time lord for-"

The Doctor cleared his throat, "Listen, if you want to wait by the teleporters to see if he'll show up, we'll be more than happy to-"

"Okay, I'll see you two in a minute!" she said, dashing off as she rushed to meet the love of her life.

"Donna, Donna!" The Doctor called after her.

"What?" she asked, sounding every bit as impatient and Chiswickian as she was.

"Just meet us back at the Tardis when you're done."

Donna looked a little crestfallen before she nodded. "Yeah, all right. See you two in a minute? Don't go swanning off without me, or I will be shouting you back here!" she warned them.

"I'm sure we'll be able to hear you all across the galaxy, but I promise that won't be necessary," the Doctor told her. "See you soon."

"See you later!"

There was silence between them for only a moment before the Doctor spoke. "Come on," he said.

Despite the celebration in the air, there was a somber air between the two of them. She'd saved River Song (even if she couldn't get the image of her own burnt and charred body out of her mind). That was something to celebrate all on it's own.

But, River was different, somehow. There had always been the psychopath underneath the… well, the Song. She'd once described River as being able to switch between River 'sweetie' Song and River 'kill you with a kiss' Song. But, this was something different. This was something entirely new. River wasn't… she wasn't River. Not anymore. There was something much more manic about her, something much more wild than she'd known previously.

That was the thing, though. River hadn't acted that much differently during the crash of the Byzantium. She'd acted like the River that Anna knew.

That was the thing, she realized, quietly. Anna didn't know River. Anna knew a version of River that she'd seen on television.

Maybe this really was a story that she would have to live to understand.

She let out a soft breath at that.

She was so distracted in her own thoughts that she didn't even notice the Doctor snapping his fingers, the Tardis doors coming open happily and willingly. The only thing she noticed was that the door was open, and she quickly took steps inside.

She started for the kitchen, (some part of her very annoyed that she already needed sustenance), but the Doctor stopped her.

"What happened back there?"

She raised her eyebrows, turning to look back at him. "Sorry?" she asked.

"The way you were acting, before. What happened…" he paused, uncertainty resting about him like a blanket. "When we first landed, you started quoting the show," he said, his eyebrows barely raising. "It was compulsive, like you couldn't stop, like you had to."

She raised her own eyebrows. "I was in shock," she said. "I thought that I couldn't save River, and you were saying that we were part of events. I couldn't come back when I had my powers back on, which meant that she would've died."

"So you started quoting the show?"

She frowned, searching him. "You're getting to a point, I think."

He let out a breath, searching her, concern etched on his face. "Do you know what being time sensitive means?"

She shot him a deadpanned look. "Being sensitive to time?" she guessed, before understanding reached her. She frowned. "I don't… But you know about my abilities, so I don't understand why you think I'm making the television show up?"

He quickly held up his hands. "I don't think you're making it up," he quickly told her. "I think that your brain is trying to understand the time stream any way that it can. With the expansive amount of knowledge that you have about me, it would make even more sense, actually, that your abilities would turn that into a television show."

She frowned, running her tongue over her top teeth. "So… What you're saying… is…?"

"Anna, I've never seen you like that," he told her. "I've seen you panicked before, but that was… that wasn't panic, that was mania. That was… having an episode," he told her.

"And you're still about to make your point, which is?"

Something about him seemed to calm at that, genuinely calm. "That being inside of an episode like we just were makes you… it takes a toll on your psyche," he told her. "It makes you start to see the timestream as a whole, instead of just seeing a single moment."

She narrowed her eyes before she raised her eyebrows. "So. You're saying that… you think I'm insane?"

"I never said that," he quickly replied. "I just said that being in what you perceive as an episode tends to make you lose touch with reality."

Surprise, realization, and anger hit her all in the same moment as the puzzle pieces assembled themselves.

"Oh my god," she said. "Oh my god, is that why you weren't listening to me about getting down to the data core? Is that-is that why we wasted all that time running around, because you thought- thought what, what exactly were you thinking?"

"That getting you to focus on the present moment would lessen the effects of being locked in to my life, and it did!" he said. "It did, because-"

She felt anger rush through her so fiercely that she wanted to hit him and cry, all in the same moment. "You… oh my god I don't have a word for you right now," she told him. "Really, really, seriously, I- I was trying to prevent that forking shit show and you just went and forked that up! How-how-how- you- you- you-"

"Anna, just-"

She made a noise of frustration, holding up her hand. "No, nu-uh, no, Doctor does not get to talk right now, Doctor gets to drop me off somewhere and not look back for twenty minutes while Anna cools down because I have literally, I have actually literally never been more angry with you in my-" she considered, before she shouted. "You get my point!" she shouted at him.

"Anna-" he started stunned.

"No!" she shouted. "No, my friend, no! You do not get to decide that your wife has just gone crazy because she starts mumbling some- no, no." she pointed at him, feeling fierceness running through her veins. "No."

He held up his hands. "Anna," he started. "I understand that you're upset with me. I get that. But walking away from me isn't the way to solve this. We need to work this out, we need to talk about this-"

"The time to motherfucking talk about it was before you decided in all your infinite time lord wisdom that I'm just insane!" she shouted at him. She was letting out huffs of air through her nose before she raised her eyebrows. "When Donna gets back. You're going to drop me off. You'll pick me up in a day or two when I've had some time to cool. The hell. Down. And then. We'll talk about how you nearly let River Song die because you weren't willing to believe me."

She felt betrayal and cold sadness wash through her, and it took everything in her not to sob and break down, right then and there.

How long had she not been believed, about her emotions, about what she was feeling or what she was saying? How long had she been afraid?

And that fear had just come to life, right before her eyes.

Realizing that's what this was about and knowing that he wasn't her, it made her less inclined to want to be dropped off. It didn't make it any easier to look at him.

"I can't," she said, shaking her head, everything about her body as heavy as lead as she turned from the console room.

"Anna, just-"

"Seriously, I can't," she told him, quietly, holding her hand up and back to him. "Just give me a minute."

He gave her more than a minute. He gave her an hour to cool down, wandering about the Tardis like the ghost he'd always feared she'd one day become because the last time she'd died had been the last time.

He didn't voice this. Even as he found her in the kitchen, staring at the empty table in front of her with a look in her eyes that he couldn't describe.

He didn't say anything. He simply walked into the kitchen, starting to make some food for her because he was sure she was hungry, even if she wouldn't voice this.

"Just start from the beginning," her quiet voice surprised him. "Tell me what happened."

He did just that, even as he continued to cook some fettucine alfredo.

"We walked out of the Tardis, after we'd landed, and you sounded… crazed," he said. "You just started mumbling about us needing to take off, and then you started to say things, things that I didn't understand. It wasn't until you said that it was the wrong show that I understood," he told her. "You were quoting the television show, and this was an episode. And I thought, maybe, because you'd always had your powers, it made it easier to… see the timelines as television shows, make it palatable, in a way. And, because your powers are off, that… broke down any sort of protections you had. This is the first time you've been in an episode without them, and I thought it was just too much for you," he told her. "I thought that, without any way to protect yourself, the timeline was pouring all into your head, all at once."

"The worst part is, I don't know that you're wrong," she said, and he raised his eyebrows, whirling around to look at her, but she wasn't looking at him. She looked like she wanted to be sick. "I kept having these flashes, you know? Of other episodes, of… of this one in particular, this one that happens in the future, and I didn't… I thought it was just me being triggered, or whatever, but what if-" she sucked in a breath before she shook her head. "But that doesn't make sense," she told him, looking back at him. "There is a television show, where I'm from. I watched it, growing up, I saw it, and I-"

He steeled himself over. "Anna," he said, quietly. "What if there never was a Somewhere? What if there was only ever a Somewhere Else? What if you are from here?"

She shook her head, standing. "That's impossible," she said. "I had a life, a whole life before I came here-"

"Because it made it more palatable. It made it easier to focus your sight if it was broken down into television formats-"

She laughed. "So, what-what, you think that every television show that I've ever seen would mean that it exists, here, somewhere?"

He shrugged. "Maybe," he said. "It's a big universe."

She shook her head. "That isn't- that isn't-" she steeled herself over. "That isn't possible," she said. "And I won't accept it."

"Why?" he asked, feeling some desperation creeping in.

"Because it means that she exists, here, in this universe, and I cannot accept that. Not when I'm not like this. Not when I'm powerless."

It took him a moment to understand what she was saying, and it clicked for him, realization cresting through him.

"Oh… Anna…"

Because that was how the abuse had affected her. It had broken apart her realities, made her believe that what she was seeing was television shows, and that's how she escaped the abuse. That's how she'd survived all that time, never being turned into someone cruel or cowardly by what her mother had done to her. She'd had the fantasy of television to escape to.

It meant that it was likely that the woman who had hurt her was here. He made a mental note of that for later, but quickly pushed it from his mind, nodding.

"Okay," he said, holding up his hands. "Okay, well, this is all a moot point anyway, isn't it?" he asked. "Because we won't know for sure until you…" he cleared his throat, the image of Anna's burnt remains sitting in the chair still haunting him. "So this is a moot point anyway. But, Anna?" he asked.

She hugged herself close, barely shaking. "What?" she practically snapped at him.

"I'm sorry."

She furrowed her brows, looking at him.

"For-for what?" she asked.

"For not believing you and for not listening to you when you said we needed to get down to the data core. I should've known better, and I'm so sorry that I didn't."

She looked down at the floor, as if there was a pattern there she could memorize. She furrowed her brows, staring at it for a long moment.

"Can we get chips?" she asked him, though she didn't look up at him.

"Yeah, sure," he said. "Whatever you want."

There was no part of him that didn't mean that.

++Midnight++

They didn't land at a chip shop. Instead, they landed in a posh lobby of what looked to be a posh spa.

"Ooh, are we having a spa day?" Donna asked, trying to act chipper. Anna still had no idea what had went down between her and Lee, and she wasn't keen to ask. She already knew far too much about the redhead without her permission. Let her keep some things private.

She frowned, though. A spa? Why did that-

She felt herself groaning inside, letting her head hang down as she let out a breath.

"Anna? What is it?"

"Midnight," she said, in spite of herself as she looked up. "We're on Midnight."

"And why's that a bad thing?"

Anna furrowed her brows. She stepped out of the Tardis, taking in the brochures and the pamphlets and the people who were milling about, not having noticed that a big blue box had landed smack dab in the middle of the lobby. But why would they? They were nowhere near on high alert, and that aside, she doubted these people would notice something like that. Rich people rarely noticed anything that didn't have to do with them making a profit.

"Maybe it isn't," she noted, before she looked over at the Doctor, making the decision to tell him about the Midnight monster. "How's time feeling right now?" she asked him, refraining herself from calling him Doc, for some reason?

He put his hands in his pockets, sniffing, before he shrugged. "Fine," he said.

"Hold on, what's that mean, how's time feeling?"

Anna took two steps back so that they could fully step off of the Tardis. Donna did so and the Doctor filled in the space. "Time lord's not just a title, remember?" the Doctor asked, as he closed the door behind him. "I can feel what is, what was, and what must never be. Anna's asking me if I can feel a paradox on the horizon, because-" he stopped, abruptly, looking over at her, a silent question in his eyes, before he dismissed it, acting casual. "Because that's what she does, on occasion. It feels fine, by the way," he said, tugging on his ear.

"You said that already," Donna pointed out.

"Donna, the Doctor's gonna get you set up with a spa package."

"And why is the Doctor gonna do that, then?" she asked.

"Because you deserve it," she told her. "Kick back, relax, all that good stuff."

"What'll you two be doing while I'm- You know what? I've just realized, married couple, in a spa, don't really need the complete picture. Yeah, sure, you two dash off. Just do me a favor, don't get into any trouble without me," she said.

"Why not?" The Doctor asked.

"Cause I won't be there to get you out of it," she said. "I swear, some days, I've no idea how you two survive without me."

"Will do," the Doctor 'played along.'

Meanwhile, Anna shivered, Donna having no idea just how true that statement really was. Well, how true that was for the Doctor, in any case.

#####

Taking care of the mythical Midnight monster was easy enough. It was strangely easy to convince hotel management that some things existed out in the x-tonic sun and that taking certain pathways would only end like it did for Hansel and Gretel when they followed breadcrumbs. Come to think of it, the Midnight monster had been pushed back into it's own metaphorical oven, the Midnight monster meeting a similar end to the witch in that respect.

In fact, the Doctor was a lot like Hansel and Gretel, in his own way, always eating candy (finding mysteries) that he shouldn't, being beckoned in by a friendly witch only to nearly be consumed by the very thing he found so fascinating in the first place. How many times had he been so lucky, she wondered? It had to literally range into the upper millions. Before, he hadn't had someone by his side to pull him out of the oven. But even now, when he had a partner, he was always finding trouble where he shouldn't, very nearly ending up as a witch's dinner.

Even the Doctor's luck had to run out eventually.

But, that wasn't now. Now, the Midnight monster disaster had been averted, two lives had been saved, and she and the Doctor got to do what they rarely did: enjoy a day, just the two of them, ordering room service and partaking in other activities that were common in hotel rooms.

#####

"This was an episode. Wasn't it?"

The way the Doctor said it, he may as well have been delivering a cancer diagnosis. It wasn't the greatest thing, considering that she was currently laying in his arms.

"Um. Yeah?" she tried. "So?"

His breath fanned the top of her head, sounding dejected.

"Because you're still you," he said. "You're still you, and calm, and sane, and rational."

She shook her head. "It's not the same," she said, quietly, and it wasn't. "For one thing, we diverted way off track of where the episode was supposed to be. You were supposed to…" she shivered, shaking her head as she burrowed herself deeper into his chest. "You were supposed to be possessed by the Midnight monster," she said, quietly. "Two people were supposed to die. Maybe it's easier for me to handle because what I saw didn't come to pass. That aside, River is… complicated, and that's extraordinarily mild of a word for what she actually is. She's tied up with so many episodes that it would make sense, what you were saying before. Being around River was too much to handle," she told him, quietly.

There was silence for the space of about twelve heartsbeats before he spoke, his words gentle and quiet. "I thought you said you didn't want to believe it, that you wouldn't, because of… everything," he said, choosing his words with great care.

She shrugged, though she felt ice filling up her veins at the mere thought of her.

"If this is the truth, then denying it because I'm scared won't change that. I did that for too long, and it's not who I am anymore, even if I still have the knee jerk reaction to every now and again," she told him. She looked up at him. "I do trust you," she said. "And, if that's what you really think, that this is time sensitivity or whatever, then until we can prove otherwise, we'll treat it as fact."

"Why?" he asked.

"Because devolving into unchecked insanity is not the way we end," she told him. "Because we don't end, but that aside, because I won't be the wife you have to hide in the attic because I have good days and bad days. If this is time sensitivity, then I need to learn how to control it and how to be okay during episodes. At least, until…" she tapped her fingers on his chest, barely smiling before she shook her head. "So. In a few days, we'll come up with a plan, figure out how to deal with this whole mess."

He frowned. "Why in a couple of days?"

"Because I've got an all expenses paid trip with my husband, and I plan to use that time very, very differently than delving into a conversation about my _sanity_ ," she told him, reaching up and kissing him, which he was more than happy to respond to.

And so, they did spend their time much differently, even if the thought of that horrible conversation was still on both of their minds the entire time, festering in a corner like a wounded animal waiting to strike.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: So. Yeah. This happened. Diverted from canon a little earlier than expected, but that does tend to happen when you're me. Again, sorry about the quality, but I hope you enjoyed it anyway, especially the whole thing I did with the episode quotes. Even if you didn't, I'm happy with how it turned out (even if that is one of the only things I'm happy with how it turned out).  
> Before you comment on the whole 'why haven't they discussed their lack of connection?' let me say that there wasn't room or time in these past two chapters. I'm delving into it next chapter.  
> As always, thanks for reading!


	25. The Wizard of Kessell 24

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter title based on, "The Wizard of Oz."  
> I still don't own Doctor Who.

_"You said that you couldn't feel me, before."_

_She'd calmed down enough that she was staring blankly at the sheet in front of her, even as the Doctor gently pushed her hair out of her face._

_"Does that mean at all?"_

_She shrugged. "Guess so," she said, quietly._

_"So you can't feel the connection, anymore," he said, and she raised her eyebrows, feeling alarm flare through her before it died as suddenly as it had come-_

Screaming. Screaming, there was screaming, somewhere-

_"Can you?" she asked, listlessly staring at the pillow._

_Instead of answering, he did what the Doctor did. He misdirected._

No, that wasn't screaming. That was… that was something else, that was a ringing in her ears. She couldn't hear past the ringing in her ears.

_"Will it come back? The connection? And why doesn't it hurt, now that I can't feel it?"_

_She stared at the sheet. "Do you want me to be honest with you?" she asked him._

_He gently grasped her chin in his hand, bringing her face up to meet his. "Always," he promised._

Her lungs were full, they were too full, she had to cough, she had to-

_"I didn't even think about the connection when I did this," she told him. "It wasn't even a thought in my mind."_

_Pain erupted-_

She didn't even have the wherewithal to scream as pain erupted in her body, nor did she have the air. She continued to cough, unable to move, unable to scream, unable to even breathe.

_-in his eyes, though he tried to tone it down when he asked his next question. "Why?" he asked. "Why wasn't it even a thought in your mind?"_

_"Because I couldn't think about it. Because the thought of being that connected to a person terrifies me to the point that I'd rather run than stay."_

When she finally was able to draw in a breath, she sobbed before she looked around. She was under a pile of what appeared to be rubble. It was dust. Dust was what had filled her lungs. Something had collapsed on top of her.

_"But you know that's not true," the Doctor said, quietly. "Because you're still here, with me. You proved to everyone that you'd rather stay than run."_

_She bit her lip, searching his eyes. "Only for you," she said, quietly, admitting it like she was admitting some terrible secret._

_He matched up their foreheads, pushing his against hers, and they both closed their eyes._

_"The feeling is_ very _mutual," he told her, quietly. "I love you, Anna Monroe."_

_Despite the fact that she couldn't feel him, she'd never felt closer with anyone in her life._

_She smiled. "I love you too-"_

She drew a breath in and she screamed.

"Doctor!"

She couldn't remember. She couldn't remember how she'd gotten under this rubble, she couldn't remember, she couldn't, she didn't, why was it so dark, where was she, what was happening, oh goodness where was he where was Donna, Donna-

_"No, but you have to pair a spacation with a shopping trip. It's-it's an Earth law," Donna lied. They'd gotten back from their spa trip, all of them looking a thousand times more refreshed, even though they still hadn't discussed the proverbial axe hanging over their heads._

_"Is it, now?" the Doctor asked._

_"Oh, totally," Donna continued. "Definitely. Don't pair a spacation with shopping, it's punishable with a fine of up to a thousand pounds."_

_"Well," he drew out the word, looking like he was considering it. "It's a good thing we're not on Earth, then, isn't it?"_

_"Doctor," Donna started, at a whine, but Anna quickly cut in._

_"I could do for a shopping trip," she said._

"Stupid," she whispered, as the memory came in. Stupid, why had she wanted to come shopping? Why? Why-

_"Oh, not you two," the Doctor whined, looking back at Anna to see the look on her face._

Oh, she realized. That's why she had wanted to come shopping.

_Both of them knew just how much they actually wanted to discuss this, the thought that- but, she couldn't think on it further and apparently, neither could the Doctor._

_"Right, then, shopping! I know a mall on Kessell 24 perfect for all of our shopping needs. Besides which, wouldn't want to be fined an imaginary thousand pounds, would we?"_

_"Oi, I'll have you know-"_

_"Yes?"_

_"Oh, button it and take us shopping already!"_

"Stupid," she whispered, regret covering her whole body as well as the pain.

It was a blur after that. The Doctor had been uneasy stepping out of the Tardis, but he hadn't been able to pinpoint why. There'd been an explosion, but where had the Doctor been?

"Doctor!" she called out, again, for good measure, coughing before she groaned.

_"I need a new pair of trainers," Donna said._

_"What's wrong with the ones you have? They look nice enough."_

_"They're already wearing down!" Donna accused, showing Anna and the Doctor her heel._

Had the Doctor been standing near her, or had he gone off with Donna to purchase shoes? She imagined it, then, the Doctor-

But that was Leather Jacket and big ears, that wasn't-

"Doctor!" she screamed out again, though this time, her energy was spent after she'd done so. She lay sobbing underneath her pile of rubble, grateful and terrified that she probably couldn't feel as much pain as she should.

"Anna!"

She stopped, every muscle in her pain and aching filled body freezing at the sound of his voice. Had it been a memory or had it actually been him?

"Anna, can you hear me? Anna! Call out to me if you can hear me!"

"Doctor?" she called out again, but this time, it was weaker. The adrenaline of remembrance-

The explosion. The explosion, it had been so close to her, she'd been standing so near it-

And the Doctor had been thrown away in the blast.

"Doctor!" she called out again, though it came out more in a sob. Please, she thought, please don't let it be a memory. Please let that be the actual him.

"Anna, keep calling out to me, I'm almost to you, I can hear you, just keep talking!"

"Doctor, please, please, I need you, Doctor!"

She heard rubble moving and she looked over to see a dark figure moving towards her. She barely shook her head, biting her lip before she realized she could taste blood in her mouth.

"Doctor?" she asked, in the quietest voice she'd ever heard herself use.

"I'm here, Anna, I'm here, I'm right here," he said, and she sagged in relief.

"Doctor," she whispered.

"Yeah, Anna, it's me," he told her. "Can you look at me, Anna?"

She frowned, searching the darkness. "Not everyone is a time lord and can see through the dark, you utter twat, what happened?"

"The…" he started, before she saw him shifting in the darkness. "Right, stupid twatish me," he said. "That's fine, can you tell me where it hurts?"

"Um, every- _where's Donna_?" she asked, alarm ringing true in her voice, before she cried out in pain at the fact that she'd barely moved.

"Donna? Donna is- Donna?" the Doctor called out, turning away.

She frowned, realizing, suddenly. "Why don't you sound like you?" she asked him, in that same small voice. The pain was starting to dull, becoming a dull thud instead of a sharp stab into her, well, everything.

"How'd you mean?"

"You sound… like… him, you don't sound like… you don't sound like him," she whispered.

She felt him grab her face in his hands. "Anna, do you trust me?"

"Yes," she said, without a trace of hesitance.

"Good," he said. "Good, then the only thing that I want you to focus on is staying awake, all right? Tell me a story, you're good at that, eh? Why don't you tell me about your favorite Christmas?"

She sucked in a pain filled breath. "It was-it was that Christmas, the one where-where we went to the Retail Christmas Nightmare, do you remember? The one where nobody could-could find their kids and you were all grumpy because there were decorations everywhere but secretly you were so ple-AH!" She screamed out when he moved a piece of rubble off of her without warning.

"I know, I know, I'm sorry, hang about, this'll hurt too, I'm taking you back to the Tardis."

"Shouldn't- shouldn't move me," she said, past the liquid suddenly filling her mouth.

"I don't move you and you won't survive another hour," he told her.

"Won't survive another-another minu…"

She felt herself fading to a cool darkness, then, thoughts of Donna's whereabouts sitting in the back of her mind.

#####

Donna was dazed. Before the explosion, she'd exited out the back way, curious to explore the new world, even if the Doctor and Anna had refused to enter the shoe store, wanting to locate the nearest bookstore instead. She'd been standing in the equivalent of a parking lot when the blast had hit, and she was currently sitting on the grass, staring at it, covered in what she was sure was dirt and debris. There was an emergency responder (or what she thought was an emergency responder that had kneeled down next to her) about a minute prior, currently checking for injuries.

"Sir, sir, you need to-"

"Donna!"

Her head snapped up and she looked up to see that a man was coming towards her. It had to be the Doctor. He was covered in dirt from head to toe, though there was a cut that was bleeding profusely on his head, as well as some other injuries bleeding. He fell down in front of Donna, quickly pulling her in for a hug.

"I'm okay, I'm okay, I'm all right."

She frowned when she realized that the Doctor was shaking with sobs. "I can't-I can't find her, Donna, I can't find Anna."

He drew back from her to search her eyes. It was in this moment that she realized he was frantic.

"I've searched for her for hours, I've picked through the rubble, I can't find her, I thought she was with you, I can't find her, Donna, what if she's-"

Donna still didn't totally understand what it was that Anna was, but from the way he talked about her, she couldn't die. Even if she was somehow more vulnerable now (which, to be honest, Donna didn't understand, either).

"Okay, okay, Spaceman, it's okay, it's okay, we can deal with this-"

"How can you say that? How can you say that it's okay, I can't find her," he said.

He had to be concussed, or the time lord equivalent of it, anyway. That paired with the fact that he loved Anna more than anything and that had probably put him into this state (especially considering she was sure it hadn't been more than a a half hour since the whole building had collapsed right in front of her).

"The Tardis can," she gently reminded him (more like assumed because that ship was miraculous and, honestly, why wouldn't it be able to?). His head shot up to look at her, and that was her indication that she was on the right track. "Right? I'm sure the Tardis has some kind of tracker thing that can locate her-"

"You're-you're right, I've to-I've to get back to the Tardis-"

He had to have been concussed because, when he stood, he crumpled like a ragdoll to the grass below.

"Doctor!" she called out, alarmed.

The first responder got on his radio and she immediately tried to shake him awake, wondering, in the back of her mind, where in the hell Anna was.

#####

Anna felt a coolness spreading through her.

"… we are, hello again," she heard a familiar voice say.

When she opened her eyes, she realized that she hadn't. Darkness crowded her vision and she blinked before she blinked again.

"I can't see," she said, quietly. "Why can't I-"

"No, no, it's okay, that'll be the bandages," he told her, quietly. "Here, just…" he helped her to gently feel the bandages on her eyes before he placed her hand back to the table below. "Your eyes were injured in the accident. Used a healing tonic of my own making, but wanted to be on the safe side. You probably shouldn't try to remove the bandages for twenty four hours."

She took a beat before she spoke. "Why're you Bowtie?" she asked him.

"Bowtie?" he asked. "Oh, is that what you call this me?" he realized. "Ooh, that's quite a cool nickname. I very much approve."

"I don't- I don't-" she tried to scramble through her memories, trying to remember.

"No, no, Anna, sh… Relax… In the state that you're currently in, your brain is acting as a normal traumatized human brain would. What would you recommend to a person in your situation?"

She bit her lip before she spoke. "Okay, but I am in my situation," she told him, quietly. "And that makes it harder-"

"But not impossible. Just take a deep breath and think. What would you say to a person who was recovering from a trauma?"

She sucked in a breath before she let it out, realizing that her face felt wet. She ignored this in favor of speaking.

"Take it slow, I'd tell them. Don't try to remember anything, just- why is my face wet?" she asked, upset.

"Sh, sh, you're probably just crying, it's a good sign, it means that the healing tonic is working, just relax, breathe. Take a deep breath. Don't think, just tell me the last thing you remember."

"Midnight," she answered him, before her eyebrows raised. "Midnight, my time insensitivity, the whole… the whole…" she let out a frustrated breath.

"Okay, good, good," he quickly told her. "Good, now, I've got you hooked up to an IV, to administer fluids and the like."

"What's that got to do with anything?"

"I've also healed the rest of your injuries, of which there were an extensive amount. Trust you to be on a shopping trip, and-"

Pain etched into his voice, but with it came the memory of what she'd temporarily remembered.

"The shopping trip," she said. "We were shopping, Donna- Doctor! Are they- are you, is he, what-"

He gripped her hand. "That's good, that's good, you were on a shopping trip, with me. The mall we were in collapsed, it was a complete and total infrastructure failure. Architects botched the job. Bound to collapse eventually, just happened to collapse on top of us."

"Time can be rewritten," she pointed out, without first asking if that him had even survived. She didn't know how to properly voice that she was terrified that this him was about to stop existing. "Was he okay?"

His voice got quiet, soft, soothing. "I need you to not focus on that right now, Anna. You said that you trusted me before, remember?"

_"Do you trust me?"_

_"Yes."_

The answer had come to her, so easily and so quickly, like it wasn't even a thought in her mind. It gave her strength and she barely nodded.

"Yes," she said. "Yes, I trust you."

"Good," he said. "Good, then all that I need you to do right now is focus on relaxing and healing. That's it. That's all."

She frowned. "Did I…?"

"No," he answered her, and she let out a breath she didn't know she'd been holding. "Got you to the medbay about three seconds before that awful, shouldn't even be thought about event occurred. Managed to heal you up using the wonders of the medbay and voila, here we are!"

She frowned. "But it was just the infrastructure, though?" she asked. "It wasn't… I thought, because of the noise and the... and you seemed twitchy, before," she said.

"In what sense?"

"Like you knew it was going to happen," she told him.

"I… knew something was about to happen. Could feel time shifting, and not in a small way. It was too late to do anything about it, though."

Horror and sadness filled her in the same measure. "All those people…" she whispered.

She realized then, that she must've been in the rubble, surrounded by hundreds of dead bodies, or people well on their way to it. She realized, in that moment, that she hadn't been able to save any of them. That they had just… died, for nothing more than an architects simple mistake.

That had been the Doctor's life before, she realized just as suddenly. Thousands of tragedies and thousands of accidents, and all those dead or dying, and sometimes, he couldn't do a thing to stop it, or to save them.

She suddenly had a whole newfound respect for the Doctor (which was saying something). It was one thing to be able to send people to an alternate dimension or to save them or (in really, really _very,_ very rare, count on one hand type of rare, cases,) bringing people back from the dead. That was easy. Having to stand over the bodies of the dead and know that there wasn't a thing that you could do for them was much harder.

But that was part of what the Doctor did, what the Doctor had to bare. He had to stand over the graves of strangers and those he loved alike.

But, that wasn't all that he did. The Doctor didn't let the weight of that responsibility crush him. He took that energy and used it, doing the only thing that he could do in that situation: making sure that the people who were hurting others couldn't, or saving the ones left to save.

"You really are freaking incredible, you know that?" she asked him, quietly.

"Not nearly as incredible as you," he told her, quietly.

"What I do is easy," she told him. "I get to save everyone. I'd never have to stand over someone's body. If I wanted to, if I really wanted to, after my powers turn back on, I can just… come back here, and save everyone," she told him, quietly.

"That's the incredible thing, Anna," he said. "You already have saved everyone."

She frowned. "What?" she asked, quietly, unable to believe it.

"The people who didn't have to die were already standing outside when the mall collapsed. The ones who did have to die, I'm assuming, were teleported to the alternate dimension, where they needed to be."

"Oh my goodness," she whispered, searching the darkness.

"You saved them, Anna, and that;s just as spectacular, if not more so. Because you choose to do this, Anna, to be this person for all of those people. You saved them, Anna. You gave them back what they never would've had, and that, Anna, is a miracle. It's amazing and stupendous, and it is why you are my favorite person in this entire multiverse."

She choked out a laugh past her sob. "That's quite a lot of people to be saying I'm your favorite person in the whole multiverse."

"Because nobody else matches up to the woman who could be a general terror to the multiverse at large but chooses, instead, to be kind and to spread that kindness as far as she can reach."

Emotions were swelling within her. "I would definitely be kissing you right now if my eyes weren't healing."

She heard him barely laugh at that. "The feeling is _very_ mutual."

#####

"I'm fine, I'm fine," the Doctor kept trying to insist, once again pushing the face mask off of his face and fighting off the first responders.

"Sir, you've already passed out three times-"

"I need to find my wife," he insisted, managing to stand up. She waited, with baited breath, for him to fall to the concrete once more, but he didn't.

"Sir, even if I thought you were in any sort of state to be doing that, the infrastructure still isn't stable. There's no telling the whole thing won't collapse further. The only thing we need to do is get you to the hospital."

"No," he insisted, managing to take three steps. "No hospitals."

"Doctor, maybe you should-"

"No."

"Sir, I'm really going to have to insist-"

He pulled out what she assumed to be the psychic paper. "I'm with the New Port Authorities and if you impinge on my heading back into this building, I will have you arrested."

For a person with what had to be a concussion, he looked startlingly fine. Maybe he healed quicker than humans, she realized, or maybe it was the fact that he had so much adrenaline rushing through his body at the thought that he'd never see Anna again.

The first responder finally gave in. "You really want to walk back into that death trap? I'm not going to stop you. I'm already buried in people as it is." With that, the first responder walked off, apparently giving the Doctor what he wanted, which was the ability to find Anna, unimpeded.

He put the psychic away, breathing hard as he leaned up against a tree that had survived the carnage.

"Doctor-"

"I'm fine," he insisted. "We need to get back to the Tardis, we need to find Anna."

"I'm here, I'm here, I'm right here."

They both turned to look back to see that Anna was standing behind them. She looked completely fine. Even her clothes had escaped the carnage.

"Anna, what-"

"No."

There was a pained breath that had escaped the Doctor, carrying that one word. The Doctor immediately collapsed against the tree, despite Donna's best efforts to hold him up. For being a twig, he was heavy.

"No, Anna, you didn't, tell me you-you didn't… you were alone, you couldn't have, I wasn't there, I didn't…"

Anna immediately rushed over to him. He hung onto her like he'd never hung onto anything in his life. At least, it looked that way to Donna. "Hey, hey, I wasn't alone," she said, quietly, but it didn't seem to assuage his fears any. "I wasn't- Oh, no, Doctor, I didn't- I didn't die," she told him, quietly.

Confusion clouded his features. "But how… how're you so okay?"

"Future you got to me. Said he set the Tardis for random, ended up here, and he heard... he heard me screaming, but I'm fine, now. See?"

With that simple word, the Doctor passed out in her arms.

#####

"You want to what?"

"I need to get him back to the Tardis," she told Donna. "But I want to make sure that you're safe. Just wait-"

"Okay, I'm gonna stop you right there," Donna said, "because I'm pretty sure you're about to insist that I wait outside, and I'm telling you there's not a chance that I'm about to wait out here while you re-enter a structurally unsound building dragging his surprisingly heavy arse through said structurally unsound building."

"Donna, I don't even know where the Tardis is. We might be wandering through that building for hours."

"Yeah, you're really making me want to stand outside, now," she said, sarcastically. "To leave you two to stumble through the dark, all alone, with no sense of direction and no place to-"

"I've got the sonic," she said.

"You've said that like it recently wasn't able to get through a _wooden_ door, Anna. _Wooden_. Now you're telling me you're gonna use it to, what, track the Tardis?"

"Just because it doesn't do wood doesn't mean it isn't a miraculous device- look, it doesn't matter," she said, as she rooted around in the Doctor's coat pocket. At least, that's what she hoped Anna was doing. She'd no idea what she would be doing otherwise, or why she would be trying to grope her husband's chest in the middle of this situation, but today had been one of those days. "I'll- ha, there, see?" she asked, holding it up.

It beeped, occasionally.

Donna looked on, appropriately unimpressed.

Anna had a hopeful look on her face for a long moment before it fell. "Fine," she said. "Grab his other side."

"As if I need telling."

She quickly scooped the Doctor's other arm up, putting it over her shoulder.

"I still don't understand how he weighs so much!" she protested. "He's like a log! He's a stick! How's he so thin? I don't understand!"

Donna looked up to see that the entrance- or rather, exit that she'd come out of was well and truly blocked off.

"What's the plan to get inside, exactly?"

"Yeah, I- I totally have a plan," she told her.

"Yeah, and I'm asking about it."

"Well," she started. "The plan is to get inside."

"… And how's that, then?"

"Well," she repeated. "I thought we'd wander around outside the building until we found an opening we could sneak through."

She started to sarcastically laugh before she looked over at Anna. "Oh, you're-you're mad, you're impossible, you're impossibly mad! Seriously," she started to ask if that was the best she had, but she changed directions mid-speech. "I've no idea how you two got on without me."

"Oh, Donna, it was a struggle," she told her.

"I don't appreciate the sarcasm," she shot back.

Anna didn't respond, and Donna looked over at her.

"Seriously, is that our plan?" she asked. "We're going to look around for an opening until we find something?"

"Something usually turns up."

When Donna looked over at Anna, she just shrugged helplessly.

#####

"Unbelievable. You have got to be kidding me."

They'd not only found an entrance that wasn't swarmed by first responders, but it looked like it was a part of the building that was, for the most part, still put together. Granted, that likely meant that it would collapse on their heads any moment, but that was a small favor.

"Come on, the sonic says she's close."

"Why do you refer to that spaceship like it's a person?" Donna complained. "I still don't understand."

"Because she's conscious, and some of the time she's even- no, hang about, the sonic just- are you broken? Seriously, right now, you're doing this _now_?" she hissed out between her teeth.

"… is the sonic screwdriver conscious, too?" she joked, before she wasn't. She suddenly worried for Anna's mental health, remembering The Library debacle. Anna was usually so strong and put together, but in that moment, Anna had come apart at the seams.

"No, it's not- shut up!" she said, indignantly, and Donna would've cracked a smile a moment ago, but that was a moment ago and now she'd realized she might've just let a traumatized woman lead her back into a collapsing building, the unconscious Doctor in tow. "She's- no, sorry, it's saying that the Tardis is- Oh."

She raised her eyebrows, looking over at Anna to see that she was looking behind them. When she looked back, she let out a breath of relief.

"The Tardis," she said.

"Come on," Anna said, and they quickly made their way to the Tardis.

"Hang about, how is it possible that the Tardis is in the only corner of the mall that wasn't completely demolished by the building collapsing?"

Anna barely paused at that before she shrugged. "Could be that the Tardis is holding the structural integrity of this part of the building."

"Is that possible?"

She shrugged. "It's the Tardis. I wouldn't put it past her. Come on," she repeated, as if Donna needed telling more than once.

"Anna?" she started.

"Yes, Donna?" she asked, as she unlocked the doors.

"Next time I suggest a shopping day, smack some sense into me, will you?"

She barked out a laugh at that. "Will do," she agreed. The door came open, and they walked inside.

It would be in that moment that the Doctor would groan awake.

#####

"Is Anna all right?"

The excitement had settled down. They'd all been healed from their various injuries, and the Doctor had swung by her room to make sure that she was doing okay with everything. He'd already said good night, but Donna had stopped him with her question.

"Yeah, course she is. All healed up, just like the two of us."

"That's not how I mean," Donna said. "What happened in the Library, her raving like a lunatic-"

Between the spa when they'd sequestered themselves away from everyone and the shopping trip, there hadn't been time to ask.

"She's… fine, Donna. We're dealing with it."

"On your own?"

He frowned, searching her. "How'd you mean?"

"I mean, is it a good idea for you to be her husband and her doctor?"

He put on his Doctor smile and she had to hold back the scream.

"Seriously, Donna, everything's fine. Don't worry about it."

"I do, though. Worry about you two."

He softened at that, walking back to her as he placed gentle hands on her shoulders. "I appreciate the concern, but really, we're all right, both of us. Anna will be fine, she always is, and so will I. Promise," he told her. "Now, off to bed. I've honestly no idea the last time you slept but I've a feeling you'll be sleeping for a very long time after this."

She didn't dare mention that they'd only been gone from the spa for a few hours (because, as it turned out, she'd been sitting outside for nearly an hour before a first responder had gotten to her). She couldn't imagine that looking for the love of his life under the rubble felt like anything less than an eternity.

"You too," she told him. "Seriously, Spaceman, do me a favor and get the equivalent of whatever time lord sleep is," she told him. "I'll see you two in the morning."

"See you in the morning," the Doctor agreed.

Not satisfied but knowing that it was the best she would get out of the time lord, she watched the Doctor walk away before she closed the door, collapsing on her bed and falling asleep nearly instantly.

#####

When he got back to their room, he saw that Anna was already asleep in the bed, the blankets pulled up to her chin. He still had no idea how she'd survived (though the Tardis knowing that it had to land to avoid a paradox and landing at just the right moment probably had something to do with it), and quite honestly, he wasn't sure that he cared. She'd survived a whole building collapsing on top of her. Whether that was his luck, her luck, or some powerful combination of the two, she'd walked away without a scratch on her. It was with this thought in mind that he crawled into bed next to her, gently wrapping his arms around her and breathing her in.

He fell asleep, shoving that tiny part of him away that kept reminding him her luck had to run out eventually, focusing, instead, on the fact that she was whole and alive.

For now, that was enough.

Except, it was more than enough. His wife was alive. Right now, it was absolutely everything.


	26. Turn Left

When Anna awoke, she was alone.

It wasn't often that that happened, anymore. Before, it was because she only slept when the Doctor slept. Nowadays, it was because the Doctor would be with her until she fell asleep and then come back before she awoke, to make sure she knew that she wasn't alone (and to chase away the remnants of nightmares that she had).

It was strange, though, because something was happening.

Even her untrained senses knew it, as she pulled on a robe and traversed her way to the console room.

It was immediately obvious that this was the case when she entered the console room. The Doctor's back was turned to her, not looking at her, his shoulders rounded out. The Gallifreyan on the screen was completely unreadable to her, and she raised her eyebrows as she stared at him. He was tense, more tense than she'd seen him in a very long time, and that was saying something.

"What's wrong?"

He whirled around on her, blatant surprise lighting up his eyes. "Anna!" he said, and he checked his mental watch. "Sorry, thought you'd be asleep for a few more-"

She wasn't one to be so easily deterred. "What's wrong?" she asked.

He looked like he was debating with himself for a moment before he simply gave in, steeling himself over. In that moment, she realized that he wasn't her husband. He'd switched full on into Doctor mode, and whatever the reason, it was scaring her.

She said as much, though it was said with a small smile on her face. "You're scaring me," she said, quietly.

He barely smiled, shaking his head in a reassuring way. "You don't have to be frightened," he told her, quietly. "I just have a couple of questions, if that's all right."

"Always," she said, even in the face of the fact that he was making himself a veritable stranger so that he could do the hard thing. Right now, she wasn't his wife. She was someone who had answers that he needed to know.

Still, at her admission, he softened before he steeled himself over once more.

"Right," he said, leaning back against the console as he crossed his arms. "I need you to do something for me, Anna, just answer me this. What happened the last time you saw your mother?"

She felt something jolt through her and she barely shook her head. "Why does that-"

For some reason, it looked like something devastating had been confirmed for him. A moment later, a look of barely there hope rested in his eyes. He was trying to keep the faith that whatever he thought she'd confirmed, she hadn't.

"No, no, no, don't think, just answer my question," he said, softly. "Just tell me what happened the last time you saw your mother."

She let out a shaky breath before she nodded, remembering that she wasn't here and that she'd never be here. Well, on the Tardis, here. That said nothing for-

She raised her eyebrows, her eyes widening as she swallowed uncomfortably. "You… found… her," she said, quietly.

"Anna," he repeated. "Just answer the question."

He hadn't confirmed or denied it, so she acted as if he hadn't.

"I said goodbye," she told him, simply.

"Why?"

She couldn't do it. She couldn't get into the particulars of this story. Not even with him. It was too painful to think about.

"Does that matter?" she asked him. "I said goodbye, that was it," she told him. "That was all. Why?" she asked. "Should there be more?"

He looked away from her, down to the bottom of the railing. "The… abuse that you've suffered would be enough to make anybody angry. Coupled with your… unique abilities, and I understand why you would have the urge to do what you… what I think it's possible that you might've done, and I'm not saying that you did," he told her, looking over at her. "It's you, Anna. I've never known you to be anything less than kind. So, I'm willing to believe whatever you tell me, Anna. I just need you to tell me the truth, and if that is the truth," he quickly tacked on. "Then I do believe you, one hundred percent, and we can move on from this. I just need to know," he told her. "Did you do anything to hurt your mother?"

"No," she answered, surprising both of them when she practically snorted. "God, no. I would never. I can't say I haven't thought about it, but she's not worth what that would do to me, as a person. Why are you asking me this?" she asked him. "Why now?"

"I may have found her," he said, running his hands through his hair as he turned to look back at the console.

She furrowed her brow. _That's highly unlikely_ , she thought, considering there were certain things he still didn't know about her, but she pushed that aside and moved to the console.

"And?" she asked, standing next to him.

"And she died, Anna."

It felt like a physical blow to her chest when he said those words. Despite the fact that Anna's mother had hurt her worse than she'd ever been hurt, some part of her still felt a pang through her chest at the thought of her just… dying.

"She died when she was 18 years old."'

She cleared her throat, furrowing her brow. "H… ow?" she asked, the word disjointed and sounding wrong to her. "I mean, I don't…?"

She shook her head, letting out a breath.

"But that must mean that I'm not from here, then, right?" she realized. "Because-because that means she died before she'd had children, so I-I don't-" she shook her head. "I don't understand," she whispered, looking down at the grating.

"Look at me," he said, quietly, and she did, looking up at him like somebody looking for an anchor in the storm. "If what you've told me is the truth, then yes, it would likely mean that you aren't from here. But I'm not sure that that's better," he told her.

She blinked owlishly at him. "How?" she asked.

"Because you were still quoting the television show compulsively, and the way that you were acting, I just-"

"Was from shock, then, I was right, so it's fine," she said, shaking her head. "It's fine," she repeated, compulsively.

"Okay, good," he said. "Good, I'm glad that it's fine. Come on, let's just head to the kitchen, grab something to eat, I'm sure you're starving."

She shook her head, looking up at him. "How did you find her, anyway?"

He hesitated before he dove into the full explanation about something complicated and technical that had to do with her DNA and being able to find a match for it. "There was only one match, Anna."

"One match each, you mean," she pointed out. "My dad and my mum- oh god."

Because it hadn't occurred to her, the thought that she'd had, and now that she'd had it, what was in her stomach was quickly coming up. She only made it to the hallway before she puked her guts out.

#####

"Do you remember what I said?" she asked, having refused to speak up until the moment they were sitting in the hallway outside of their bedroom. "About making the ushers in Texas disappear?"

"We talked about that," he said, softly. He was rubbing gentle circles into her back, and it was insanely comforting. "It was something you saw, not something that you made happen."

She felt a small hope rise in her chest. "Was it possible that I just… saw this, too?" she asked him. "That I didn't make this happen by just thinking about it, creating-" she felt the nausea overwhelm her once more, and she curled up into a tiny ball at the thought.

"Were you happy when you saw it happening?"

" _God_ no, how can you even _ask_ me something-"

"So you were horrified at the thought of her dying," he said. "You hated yourself for it, but you couldn't make it stop."

After a moment, she spoke. "Yes," she said, quietly.

He wrapped his arms around her and she gratefully fell into them. "Then it wasn't something that you made happen, or even wanted. It was just something that you saw."

She pursed her lips, curling up deeper into him. "Promise?" she asked, in a tiny voice.

"I promise," he agreed.

It would never cross her mind, how strange it was that the Doctor would ask what had happened to her mother, what their last encounter was, or if she had hurt her. The Doctor would never willingly volunteer the information that he thought his own wife had gone back in time to before the abuse had ever occurred, to stop it from occurring. No part of him thought that it was even remotely possible, but the possibility had still occurred to him, and he wouldn't be the Doctor if he didn't ask.

It was better this way, he thought, having that awful woman already out of their lives. The temptation for him to somehow rectify the situation, to do what he'd basically accused Anna of doing, would be too great for him otherwise.

It would be a conversation that would float away in the ether, never to be discussed by either of them, Anna never realizing that the Doctor was accusing her of one of the worst things a person could do, even if he'd never actively believed her capable of it.

That still begged the question of what this meant. If Anna's mother had died here before Anna had ever been born, did that simply mean that Anna had been right about the television show? Or was it so much worse than that, meaning that the television show existed, but somehow, it simply amplified her time sensitivity, which also might've existed?

Except, she _was_ more than time sensitive. He couldn't believe he'd forgotten about her 'feelings'. Anna had time sense.

So what did this mean? Possibly that she just wasn't able to handle having time sense without her abilities turned on, and being inside of episodes just amplified it.

Maybe this was a conversation that didn't need to take place. If enough changes were made to her 'episodes' to keep her sane, then maybe they didn't have a problem on their hands.

In the end, this didn't matter, not exactly. Eventually, Anna's luck would run out, and she would-

He sucked in a sharp breath, and he held her closer at the thought.

"Can we get milkshakes?" she asked suddenly.

"Yeah, course. Whatever you want," he echoed his previous statement, still meaning it as much as he had the first time he'd said it.

#####

"You know we don't have the best of luck when it comes to market places," Donna pointed out.

"What- are you talking about that mall? That must've been years ago by now. Right? Back me up on this, Doctor."

"A year to the day, actually, but I wasn't going to mention that," he said, giving Anna a pointed look.

She ignored that. "If you measure by that metric, we don't exactly have the best luck when it comes to _any_ places," she told her. "Not with the way he attracts trouble."

"Oi," the Doctor said, at the same time that Donna spoke.

"Just him?"

"What?" Anna asked. "No, you cannot seriously be comparing the amount of trouble that he gets into with the amount that I get into."

"Isn't it the exact same? Considering that you two are practically joined at the hip?"

"We are not!" she said.

"We're not?" the Doctor asked, sounding genuinely confused.

"What did I just say?"

"What?" he asked, innocently.

"I said back me up," she said.

"That was two topics ago," he pointed out.

She rolled her eyes up to the heavens. "You're hopeless," she said.

"Hopelessly in love," he said.

"Hopelessly cheesy," she shot back at him, but still leaned over to kiss him.

" _And_ that's my cue. I'm going to go out and explore. You two holler if your collective affinity for attracting trouble gets you arrested. Again."

"One time, that was one time!" she shouted after Donna.

Donna turned around to walk backwards. "Yeah, but isn't that more than enough?" she asked.

"Oh, just shift already!"

"Will do!" Donna shouted back, walking away from the pair.

As soon as Donna scurried out of sight, she whistled.

"What?" he asked.

"Nothing," she said. "Just… it's already been a year. Time flies when you're aging," she said.

"Oi," he repeated his earlier statement. "Enough of that. It's already been a year, that's a reason to celebrate! Hang about, it's been more than a year, hasn't it?" he asked her, and he looked up and away, pulling her along as he started through the marketplace. "There was… three months before that, and then Pompeii and the Ood and the Adipose, so that makes a year and three months," he finished, succinctly.

A lot had happened in the past year. For one, _Unicorn and the Wasp_ , in which her Dues Ex Machina had kicked in. Professor Peach had just _nearly_ died, Miss Chandrakala had only _almost_ been crushed to death, and Roger had just been _shy_ of being stabbed somewhere fatal, though she'd checked in on Roger the next day and found that he and the love of his life had run off to somewhere far away, where they could be accepted and loved for who they were (or her Dues Ex Machina had just taken them to the alternate dimension, ala Korwin and McCormick). Even the Vespiform had been teleported to the alternate dimension, via a very spectacular light show, which still resulted in Ms. Agatha Christie losing her memory because of the very violent severing of their link via the Firestone. The point being, things still fell into place, she hadn't ended up insane, and all in all, it was a good day because it sort of proved that it had just been shock that had caused her to 'compulsively quote episodes'.

It had never even occurred to her to mention to him that a better part of her life before coming here had had watching _Doctor Who_ be one of her main coping mechanisms. So, it would only make sense that, in times of trouble, her brain would try to remind her of a coping mechanism that had worked before. Truth be told, she still hadn't told him. Some things were better left unknown, especially when it came to how she obsessed about a television show starring her now husband.

The point being, it had been nearly a year, and the only episode to come up _was_ _The Unicorn and the Wasp_. Part of her was worried that they'd never get the phone call from Martha, signaling the start of what would be T _he Sontaran Strategem_ and T _he Poison Sky_ , as well as _The Doctor's Daughter_ , but truth be told, she was sort of going with the flow. She trusted the Tardis to know when the time was right (because she absolutely refused to believe that Martha had been cut out of his life completely).

That was the other thing about the past year. It was working. She found herself starting to trust both him and the Tardis nearly intricately, on a level she'd never been able to trust anyone before. She'd started to think that, perhaps, it wouldn't be such a bad thing if this was how she lived her life, an ordinary human with her time lord husband and their time machine, saving the day and making a difference wherever they went. Maybe some part of her had known that, that day.

All in all, things were doing really well.

It was probably why she froze as she realized in that moment the exact place they had landed in.

"Oh, no," she whispered, looking around.

They weren't in just any marketplace, and apparently, _Unicorn and the Wasp_ wasn't the only episode they were about to live through.

 _Turn Left_ had decided to rear it's ugly head.

"Donna."

She meant that in more than one way. How was she supposed to help Donna through the metacrisis, saving her from losing her memories if she didn't have her abilities to sort it out?

But, also, on a different note, Donna didn't have to-

Rose.

"Oh, no," she repeated, quietly.

She hadn't _forgotten_ about Rose. No part of her had _forgotten_ about Rose. She'd been content in the knowledge that Rose would get her happily ever after with her metacrisis Doctor. She'd just been willfully ignoring the fall out that would take place when Rose eventually did come back. Because there would be fallout. Rose's heartbreak over what looked like the Doctor just moving on to the next available thing, for one. She didn't know that he'd traveled on his own for nearly fifty years, and that aside, him and Anna'd been traveling together for nearly a year previous to their little spat in _Dalek_ (little spat. Ha). Besides which, they'd had six glorious years together. This wasn't a simple matter of finding someone else. He and Anna were perfect for each other, even if Rose had also been perfect for him.

Oh, what a complicated life that man had.

That man being her husband.

This day was getting better and better. But, for now, she had a decision to make. If she stopped Donna from entering the parallel world, it meant that Rose might not be able to reach them because of it.

Well, then, she realized. It wasn't a decision. Rose had to be able to reach them to get her happily ever after.

Even if Anna _was_ terrified of the fire that was about to rain down on her.

"Anna?" the Doctor asked. "What is it, what's wrong?"

"I. Erm."

She didn't know how to put this genie back in the bottle. Truth be told, she'd no idea how long it had taken for the unpleasant beetle to work it's mojo, but interrupting it's shenanigans didn't feel like the safest bet.

"Everything's fine," she told him.

The universe sometimes liked to laugh at her expense. Unfortunately for her, one of those moments happened to be right then.

"Oh. Okay. Guess I…"

Her eyes widened as she took in every detail of the woman standing in front of her, because the woman _was_ her. Future!Anna was standing in front of herself, looking down at her and the Doctor's intertwined hands, her eyes barely widening.

"Everything's fine?" the Doctor asked, and Anna looked over at him, shrugging.

"It is not my fault that I get nostalgic for no good reason," she told him, and she meant it, because why would she come back to this place, of all places? She turned back to look at herself, asking her. "What're you doing here?"

"What am I doing here, what are _you_ doing here?" Future!Anna asked, motioning angrily down at their intertwined hands. "What, I failed one Doctor so I thought, nah, it's fine, I can just pick up a replacement?"

She balked at that, opening and closing her mouth before she looked over at the Doctor. "Do you- woah, what's that face for?"

He raised his eyebrows, looking between the two Anna's. "What? No, nothing, absolutely nothing," he said, looking at Future!Anna. "You were saying something about failing me?" he asked.

"Okay, no, seriously?" Future!Anna asked.

In the next moment, time had frozen around them so completely, the Doctor still staring where he had been not moments prior.

"What is wrong with you?" Future!Anna asked.

"I don't- what's wrong with _you?"_ she asked her, and then she realized the problem as her eyes trailed down to her left hand. She pointed at it. "Hold on, where's your-"

"My ring?" she asked, holding up her left hand. "The one that I don't have because I didn't marry the man that I failed? What the hell did you _do?"_

"What the hell did I do, what do you _mean_ the man that you failed? How have you- we, how have we failed- hold on, if you're me, then why don't you already know the answer to your own question? Or is this a, 'I've lived through it and now I'm spouting utter nonsense' type deal. Because I've no idea what you're on about. How've I failed him?"

She wasn't used to seeing the anger on her own face. It was spectacular, actually. There was a smile lighting up her face, the anger itself actually located in her eyes.

" _Turn Left_. Is that ringing any bells for you? The alternate timeline that we've just come from, the one where we woke up after we'd been tortured by the angels to find the Doctor dead? Ringing any bells?"

She raised her eyebrows. "Um. No," she said. "Because I woke up and the Doctor was alive and well, albeit thinking that I had left him- and oh my god."

She was staring at an Anna who had come from an alternate timeline, and she raised her eyebrows, feeling a sense of bizarreness flying through her.

"H… ow do you even… exist right now? You're-you're not a copy, you can't be, because copies don't exist, so you're… but I'm paradox proof, so that means that there can't technically be more than one of me. Sort of. Kind of." She furrowed her brow.

She was confused when relief filled her own face. "So I… didn't just replace the Doctor with another version of him, then," she said.

She narrowed her eyes at herself. "I don't know what that means," she said.

"I… when I saw the rings, I thought- I just sort of assumed that I'd failed him the first time and I, I just…" she shook her head, letting out a breath. "I don't know, but it felt cruel and wrong."

She furrowed her brows. "He's still the same man," she told her. "Even if you-I-… we? Had whatever, it would still be him. The difference wasn't with him. It was with Donna."

Future-… Sideways? Anna furrowed her brows as well. "I guess… I mean, I guess I didn't think about it like that," she said.

"Yes, well, I am many years older than you and therefore much wiser."

"Much humbler as well, I see," she said, smiling slightly.

"Humble pie is not something I partake in anymore," she replied.

"You seem… different," she said, and Anna shrugged.

"It's what happens when you have unending love and unconditional support. Thought it was overrated, turns out, the joke was on me the entire time! It's great, really, you should try it."

Sideways!Anna fidgeted, glancing around. "Yeah," she said. "Yeah, guess I… should." She frowned, turning to look back at Anna. "So… what happens, now? I mean… do I, like… go home, or…?"

She frowned as well. "I mean, I don't… know?" she said. "Because, like technically speaking… both of us would have to exist there?" She shrugged. "I don't know, I guess you could, like, chill or something." She considered. "I mean, you could always head off to some of the other dimensions we always thought about visiting. Get a head start on helping- and oh my god! Oh my god, oh my god, oh my g-o-d GOODNESS!"

Her whole face lit up in realization, her heart pounding out of her chest in excitement.

"Anna, this-this could work, this could totally work, I could- oh my goodness, this could work!"

"Loving the enthusiasm, but do you want to clue us in on what's happening in that brilliant brain of yours?"

"I- oh, you called me brilliant," she said, in realization.

She shrugged. "Thought I'd hop on this not eating humble pie thing."

"How'd it feel?"

She shuddered. "Not great, can we get back to the topic at hand? What could work?" she asked her.

At the mention of it, she got excited all over again. "Okay, okay, okay, do you remember that alternate timeline version of the Doctor?" she asked.

She furrowed her brows, glancing over at the Doctor. "I mean… technically, from my point of view, he's the alternate-"

"Oh, no, no, right, that was-that was after _Dalek_ \- Oh, you never had that fight with him. Oh, you had such pure memories," she said, in remembrance, before she shook her head, excitement once again flying through her. "Okay, doesn't matter, point is, sort of accidentally spawned an alternate timeline where we'd never been there and, erm, well, the Doctor still had to suffer thinking that he'd ended the Time War, and, well, me and him ended up visiting that alternate timeline-"

"No, I'm sorry, hold on, back- what?" she asked. "What do you mean- then what was the point in doing any of this if there's a timeline out there where he's suffering for something he didn't even do?"

She frowned, smiling. "Seriously?" she asked. "You're saying that just because there's a broken arm out there somewhere that all the broken arms that have ever been healed don't mean anything?" she furrowed her brow. "I really didn't have the sunniest disposition when I got here, did I?"

She thought she'd been more healed than she had been when she'd originally traveled to the Whoniverse. But, look at her now. Look at where she was. Trusting someone so intricately that she was literally putting her life in their hands, and more than that, putting her emotional wellbeing in their hands. Leaps and bounds from where she had been, and proof of that was standing in front of her, a look of realization crossing her face.

"Oh. I didn't think about that, either," she said, looking up and to the left of herself, before she shook herself.

"That so isn't the point," she said, reaching out and grabbing her arm. "Because I have a solution, and it is the best solution!"

"Okay! Why!" she said, in the same cheery tone she was using, except hers was fake.

"Okay, so I…" she felt shame starting to crest through her. "Okay, now, this isn't… It's complicated. The situation is complicated, and I want you to acknowledge that before you get all judg-y on me."

She looked at her suspiciously. "Why would I be judg-y?" she asked.

"So, I…" And, she explained the situation. How she'd brought the Tardis to life and how the Tardis had tried to trap her to his timeline. How she'd rationalized that she couldn't visit every Doctor in every timeline, because the temptation to just get lost in him would be too great, and how she'd thought she'd forget her duties to the rest of the multiverse.

"But this is perfect!" she told her. "And actually, this might be even more than perfect, because technically, for every Anna that is in a timeline, there would be a _Turn Left_ version of her that could just travel to the next timeline, and so on, and so on."

Sideways!Anna was looking at her, confused.

"What exactly are you asking me to do? Besides which- no, I don't understand," she said. "You're talking about having a lot of incredibly powerful beings wandering about the universe. What happens when all of their times end in the Whoniverse? Where exactly are they supposed to go?"

She'd never believed 13's words more than she did in that moment. Because the proof of that was standing before her, literally telling her that she wasn't even thinking about a forever with the Doctor.

The only thing she could do was hang onto the fact that she was different now, and some time spent with a Doctor who loved her unconditionally would help her to see that, too.

"The multiverse is an infinite place," she told her. "There's plenty of room for millions of Anna's to wander about, fixing things. I mean, _The Magicians_ alone. How many timelines did that show have? Fifty?"

"Forty," she said, looking at her suspiciously. "Why don't you know that off the top of your head?"

"I have to know everything, all the time?" she asked her.

"Okay, okay, my point still stands," she said. "There can't be that many powerful beings running around. What if-" she bit her lip, leaving the words unspoken.

"Then I will deal with it," she said. "Or you will. We'll create a system of like, necklaces or whatever to let us know if one of us has gone rogue, but until then, we'll be out there creating good in the multiverse. Besides, isn't this better than having to obsess over all the ways- And actually, this is better, because each of us can be assigned to, like, one universe in a particular dimension so we're not always bouncing around to different places! This is perfect." She laughed. "Plus, can you imagine the looks on our faces when we meet each other in _The Magicians_? It's going to be hilarious."

"I'm-I'm not sure that's a word that I would use, except that technically I did just use it. Whatever, I'm glad you're finding this amusing. Can we get back to the point at hand?"

"I literally have no idea what that was," she told her.

"You were talking about the Doctor you so recklessly abandoned?"

"Oi! What did I say about the no judgement thing?"

"You could've done, though!" she said. "It didn't have to be every Doctor in every timeline, it could've just been that one- and, you could've even headed back to this Doctor after you were done!"

"I said that," she pointed out. "And you know me, us, whatever. It would've been too tempting, and I don't think you even know the true reason behind it."

"And what's that?"

She shrugged, shifting. "Because it would've been so easy to distance ourselves from him, saying that we could never get too close to one Doctor because we had so many Doctors to attend to." She shook her head. "This was never about being worried about being the Doctor's Doctor. This was about realizing that I was afraid to get close to someone, especially someone who I knew could actually help me."

"Be that as it may, you know that he still remembers you. You know how hard it would've been for him to just put it behind himself. After everything that he'd been through?"

Realization crested through her, and her whole face lit up. "There-there were so many emotions, I wouldn't- I might not have even noticed a feeling!" she pointed out, before she smiled. "What if I knew that you were coming?"

Anna opened and closed her mouth, before she looked up and to the right of herself. "Huh. I didn't think about it like that," she said, for the third time in the same conversation.

#####

He still hadn't found the wherewithal to move what must've been genuine days later, but it was only made worse when he heard the sounds of somebody else moving in the warehouse.

He looked to the left of himself.

"I'm in no mood for whatever this is," he warned whoever it was. "If you know what's good for you, you'll walk away."

He heard someone crouch down and he locked himself in place. He had no desire to hurt anyone but he wasn't entirely sure he'd be able to hold himself back, if push came to shove.

"Doctor," he heard a quiet, gentle voice say. It only made him angrier, the anger thrumming through his veins, making his muscles coil as tightly as a spring. "It's me. It's Anna Monroe."

In the span of a millisecond that lasted a thousand times minutes, everything changed.

His initial reaction was to see red instantly, thinking that somehow some psychic creature was preying on his grief. He'd already warned them that he was in no state to be toyed with. It was their mistake if they thought they could handle something like the Predator.

 _She can do everything and anything_.

It was his saving grace that his mind had combed through every inch of his time sense to find out everything he could about the woman that had left him so abruptly, trying to hang onto every inch of the woman who had left him with his grief, rampant, unending, unyielding.

Every single inch of him stopped at the thought that Anna was a literal and actual miracle worker.

Even if it was too much to hope for, even if this might put his very life at risk because it might still be something preying on his grief… he looked over at her, utterly stupid hope filling his chest.

"Anna?" he asked, quietly, his voice sounding small, even to him.

The only reason he even noted that there was someone standing behind her was because he was a time lord, but the rest of all of his twenty thoughts were focused on her, on the singular moment when she'd returned to him and the clouds were parting and the sun was shining because she was there, she was his Anna and she'd come back to him.

She nodded. "It's me," she said, quietly.

For a moment, he couldn't move and yet he did, moving with shaking and unsteady limbs as he made his way to her on all fours, gently caressing her cheeks and holding her face in his hands before he matched up their foreheads, it was Anna, she was alive and whole and here and-

"What're you doing here?" he asked, hopelessly, some part of him finally unwillingly, (kicking and screaming all the while) registering that Anna was sitting in front of him and maybe that didn't mean forever.

"I'm here to give you a gift," she said, quietly. "But I need you to have an open mind. Can you do that?"

He still remembered the weight of his wedding ring sitting against his chest as he'd been forced to say goodbye.

And, despite the fact that his name was practically 'Open Minded' (among other things), and the fact that there was no part of him that wanted this moment to end, he still barely shook his head.

"Whatever it is, I'm sure it's lovely," he heard himself saying. "But it means sod all if it isn't you."

He felt her barely shaking and knew that it was with laughter that she was trying to hold back. He couldn't even think that it was cruel, because it was Anna, and if there was one thing she wasn't, it was cruel. She readjusted, getting a little more comfortable before she spoke (though he'd be damned if he was about to release her ever again, their foreheads still matched as tightly as she would allow them to be).

"Do you remember the alternate timeline that Donna's- well, being Donna created? The marketplace, the one right before the daleks tried to destroy the universe, the one where Donna talked to Rose?"

Okay, maybe she wasn't cruel, but this was mean. It felt like she was purposefully stabbing him for no good reason, bringing up the memories of people he'd long since lost.

"What's your point?" he asked her, though it wasn't that unkindly.

"It sort of…" she huffed out a breath and it fanned his face. "I've just come from there, and as it turns out, it spawned… well, it… there was a me that existed there, and I've no idea why, but she's standing behind me. She's about a year younger than I was when I came here, but she's still the me that you fell in love with, and if you're willing, if you have an open mind, then you can keep her. Well, as much as you can keep a person, I didn't mean to make it sound like I was saying she was a pet or anything-"

The Doctor jerked back, realization suddenly overtaking him. He looked back at the person standing behind Anna to see that she hadn't been lying.

She was standing behind her, looking uncertainly between the two of them.

"Anna," he breathed.

He stood, suddenly, glancing between the two before his eyes settled on the standing Anna.

"So you're… You're Anna, then," he said.

She held out her hands. "It would appear that way, yes. Which-which is to say that yes, I-I am Anna. I just, erm. Yeah, what… what she said," she finished, rubbing the back of her head.

His hearts were leaping in his chest. "Is this… I mean, would you- what about your Doctor?" he asked her. "The one-the one that you were with?"

A bitterness swept across her face, one he knew all too well.

"He's…" she swallowed past the lump in her throat, not looking at him, now. "I guess Donna wouldn't have told you what happened to that you." She frowned. "Or maybe she did?"

Realization crested through him. "Oh," he said. "Oh, I am sorry," he said. "Really, truly."

Anna looked up at him, startled. "What for?"

"Because it's always hard to lose the ones you love," he said. "Even if another version of them exists somewhere out there, and is currently standing in front of you, talking to you. I'm-I'm assuming, I guess, that you did love him?"

She looked down and away, barely nodding.

He cleared his throat. "I… I know that he wasn't… I mean, he's different from me, and I wouldn't… I wouldn't presume to-"

Anna's head shot up to look at him, but before she interrupted him, she closed her mouth.

"-replace him, or anything of that nature. But, if… I mean, if that's what you wanted, to be here, in the way that she was, in the way that you were, I would… be more than happy to have you here."

Because he'd never deserved an Anna who loved him so deeply and so widely, and he'd never presume to think that he'd ever have that again. He would be more than _ecstatic_ , he would be more than thrilled to have an Anna at his side, even if it was just as a very good friend. Because having any version of her was better than having no version.

"But only if-if that's what you wanted," he quickly added on, finally glancing down at the other Anna. "No repeats of last time, I'm afraid- hoping, I'm _hoping_ ," he said, raising his eyebrows and making it very clear that what happened last time would not be happening again anytime soon.

"If that's- I mean, I'd… if you'll have me. I don't want to presume to replace her, either, because she's, like, I mean she's different enough that I would get- but yeah, yeah, if you'll have me, then-"

His hearts filled with an unending joy. He tried to find the strength to hold himself back from hugging her, picking her up and spinning her around in a circle, but, well, there they were, already having done that, his hands clasping her cheeks.

"It's all that I want," he promised, and he'd never said anything so true.

"Fantabulous!" Anna… One? Interrupted them, clapping her hands together. He looked over at her, allowing himself a moment of weakness to slot his arm around Anna's waist, turning to look at her. He could feel that Anna felt uncertain about it, but after a moment, he was delighted when she put a hand on his shoulder, leaning slightly against him. "We'll head back to the Tardis, bring her back to life, scold her for not understanding that no means no, and then we'll have her repeat whatever it was that she did to make you travel out of order in his timeline!"

The Doctor felt confusion trailing through him as he glanced at Anna. Was that what she wanted? He wouldn't object, but he'd thought that maybe they could start over, have her travel in order of his timeline.

"I mean, we... don't have to do that, though?" Anna tried. "Because I can just-"

"Travel through my timeline in the correct order, yes," he agreed, feeling a small relief fill his chest. "I was just thinking the same thing."

They both looked over at Anna One.

"Well, yeah, I mean, obviously we can do that. I definitely didn't forget that that was at all a possibility, can we get a shift on?" she asked. "I still have no idea if he's noticed that I'm gone yet."

"I already said I'd put you back where you're meant to be," Anna pointed out, and he frowned, looking at her.

"Why would you have to-"

"That doesn't matter, the point is, shift on!" she said. "Come on!"

He felt a giddy joy rushing through him that he hadn't felt in a very long time as they all made their way back to the Tardis who was no doubt waiting with baited breath to see if she would get to keep this one.

#####

"Say you're sorry."

"I'd like to be very clear that I'm only sorry because you've come up with a better solution," the Tardis said, and the Doctor rolled his eyes. "But yes, I am sorry."

"You know what? I'll accept that, but I'd like to be very clear that I'm only doing it because you're a sentient being that doesn't randomly jettison people into space for a laugh," she said.

"Duly noted. Can we move on, now?"

"Yes, we can!" Anna One said, before she glanced around. "I still have no idea what the plan is!"

"Oh, no, right, I guess I can just… head back, now." He was surprised by the nervousness resting on Anna like a blanket, and he turned to her.

"If you're having second thoughts," he started, and the only reason his stupid mouth even started to say that was because Anna One had just brought up the horror show that those events had turned out to be and they were therefore fresh on his mind and he didn't want a repeat experience of having an Anna glued to his timeline that didn't want to be there.

If he'd thought about it further, he wouldn't have said anything at all. Truth be told, now that she was back, he wasn't sure he was willing to give her up for anything (though he was wrestling with himself about whether or not at this point he would've agreed with the Tardis that he would've done anything to help keep her there. He shuddered at the thought that the part of him that agreed with the Tardis was starting to win. He could only hope now that she didn't say she was having second thoughts, because honestly, in this moment, he really wasn't sure what he'd do).

"No, absolutely not," she told him, and he scrambled to remember what it was that he'd said. "Promise, I'm just sort of… nervous, I guess," she told him.

Okay. That seemed promising and like it meant she wanted-

He would just wait for any sort of hope until the appropriate moment, which definitely wasn't now.

"Well, that's normal, then, nerves are normal. Right, Anna?" he asked, looking over at Anna One for encouragement (and he tried to tone down the threat in his eyes, but judging by the look of mild confusion on her face, he wasn't succeeding. Still, she played along, though it wasn't out of any sort of fear, which was good. Definitely didn't want to scare her into anything like submission).

"Right, yeah, absolutely. Just go with the flow. You'll be fine. Besides, it's even easier now because- of certain events," she said. "But- Oh, no, I see what you're saying," she said, despite the desperate look he was throwing at her. "No, you'll be fine," she said. "He loves you, he always will. Just pick a place and you'll be fine. You'll do the right thing. You always do."

Memories of this Anna were vague, but he didn't remember her being this confident, even with her powers being turned 'on'. He wondered what had changed. Maybe she'd made the right choice in heading back with the other Doctor, he thought.

"Oh my god, have I always been this nice and I just never noticed?" she asked.

"Yeah, pretty much," Anna One said, and the Doctor had to hold back the laughter at the exchange. It was fairly easy when he was this nervous.

"Okay, yeah, you're right, I'm good!" she said.

One moment, she was standing in the console room.

The next, his hearts were made whole. He leaned against the console, breathing raggedly as time was rewritten, though a huge smile was on his face, even through the pain of the time storm in his chest.

"Okay?" he heard her ask.

He looked up at her, a manic smile on his face. "Absolutely amazing," he said. Before he could stop himself, he ran up to her, sweeping her up in a hug. "Thank you," he said, squeezing his eyes shut.

"Always," she promised, and he believed her.

A moment later, they pulled apart, and he walked to the console, humming a tune.

"Okay, but where is she, though?"

"What?" he asked, looking back at Anna One. "Who?"

"… Anna?" she tried.

"What?" he asked. "Oh, I don't…" he frowned, looking down at the console, before his hearts fell a little. "Oh, that's disappointing. She's popped off to some place called _The Magicians_ for a bit. Said she had some business what needed taking care of there."

He wasn't as disappointed as he could've been, considering Anna was once again in his life and the ring no longer had to be hidden underneath his shirt, now sitting on his left hand proudly, visible for all to see. Memories filled his head of Anna, happy and smiling, the light in a sea of darkness. Besides, this _Magician's_ business seemed important.

He looked up and didn't understand the look on Anna One's face, that wide-smile, barely there confusion in her eyes.

"That's… a joke, right?" she asked.

"I'm… afraid not, why?" he asked, not quite able to frown because this was a spectacular day. It might actually have been his favorite day. "What's wrong?"

She half-laughed, leaning over, propping her elbow up on the console as she crossed her leg, now leaning completely against the console.

"She was my ride, Doctor," she said, as if they were sharing a joke.

"Come again?"

"I have no other way of getting home."

At this, he did blanch. "Come-come again?"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I still don't own Doctor Who.  
> Tada!  
> Smallish story time:  
> So, originally, I was going to have Anna head back to the alternate timeline during the post-Pond era but pre-Clara days, just to be there for emotional support. BUT THEN, there was a spare Anna laying around, and I felt bad just sending her HOME, and then I had THIS bit of genius idea, because there was a spare Anna and a spare Doctor and I thought, HEY GUESS WHO DOESN'T HAVE TO BE HEARTBROKEN ANYMORE? … Technically both of them. Because Sideways!Anna lost a Doctor, so. I love calling her Sideways!Anna. I have no idea why.  
> Onto bigger and better things, which is that this officially marks the beginning of the end for this story! That being said, I'm like ninety eight percent sure that Stolen Earth + Journey's End will be four chapters each. I've no idea why. I know what happens but I don't have it written so I guess we'll be on that *journey* together. Ha? Haha?  
> Not to mention that there's still a part two to Turn Left and boy oh boy it'll be a doozy. I'm stoked. Are you stoked? You should be. Properly stoked. Because I am.  
> As always, thanks for reading!


	27. Turn Left Awakes

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I have done something incredibly different with this one, and I'm very excited at the product. It's one of my longer chapters, but I didn't think it would be appropriate to split this one up, as it really is a stand-alone in every sense of the word.  
> That being said, I went back and re-read the original alternate timeline chapter. I've got some minor band-aid... 'ing' to do, so the chapter after this might be delayed.  
> Chapter title based on, "The Sleeper Awakes."  
> I still don't own Doctor Who.

Anna appeared back in time, and immediately noted that the Tardis was covered in grief.

It oozed off of her walls, covering every inch and every part of this place. She realized that she must've accidentally appeared exactly where she hadn't meant to, which was literally two seconds after he'd lost everything.

He wouldn't understand her being there, let alone something like the television show. Teleporting out now-

But what, leaving him on his own?

She didn't know why she thought about it, then. Waking up after the angels had nearly killed her, to find herself in an empty Tardis to realize that the Doctor had died. It was one of the hardest things she'd ever had to do, simply allowing events to play out as they had. She might've been all powerful, but _Turn Left_ had to happen the way that it had, if only because it meant that Rose could get her happy ending. Anna had changed a lot of things in reference to his personal timeline. This wouldn't be one of them.

She quickly shook her head, starting to try to sneak out of the Tardis, about to teleport out-

"Oi!"

She raised her eyebrows, whirling around to see that the Doctor was standing at the end of the hallway.

His shoulders were rounded out and he was tense as anything. _Crap_ , he was still wearing the War Doctor's clothing.

 _Seriously?_ She mentally cursed herself. She couldn't even come ten minutes after he'd regenerated, it had to be three seconds after he thought he'd lost everything?

"Um, hi, yeah, sorry, I- teleporting, new to it, my bad, I'm teleporting out now-"

"What, you think you can just teleport anywhere you fancy and there won't be a few words volleyed at you?"

"N-n-no, no," she told him, holding up her hands. "Seriously, no, I- really, sorry, like I just said, new to teleporting in, I'm-I'm teleporting out, now, I'm-I'm Anna, by the way, Anna Monroe, this is me, heading out, now."

She realized how easy she'd had it, before, with the Doctor who was grateful. Even if she thought that he would hate her for what she'd done and therefore tried to best prep herself for it as much as she could, it was still difficult to see him looking at her like she was enemy number one when she was anything but. Or, well, trying to be, anyway.

"Hold on," he said, and she frowned before her eyebrows raised, confusion trailing through her. "Where were you trying to end up?"

She raised her eyebrows. "Not… here?" she tried. "Seriously, I'm-"

"Bit hard to believe, considering that you've teleported into a Tardis with the shields raised to full capacity," he told her, quietly.

She let out a breath. "Okay, fine," she said. "Yes, I-I was trying to end up here, but I wasn't trying to end up here, _here_ , aiming for somewhere a bit further into your future. I'm Anna Monroe-"

"You said that already," he cut in. "What business do you think you have with me?" he asked.

She raised her eyebrows before she shook her head. "Seriously, it can wait," she told him.

"What would be the point in that?" he asked. "Might as well take care of it, right here, right now, considering you put the both of us at risk when you punched a hole straight through the Tardis, getting here."

She frowned. "No, I'm-I'm pretty sure I didn't do that," she told him. "Know how to teleport well-enough to know how to not punch a hole through a multi-dimensional being, actually, but…?" she raised her eyebrows before she shook her head.

He searched her. "You're a very good liar, you know," he said.

She shook her head. "I'm not lying."

"Yeah, but you did do, just a minute ago, when you said that you were new to teleporting."

She raised her eyebrows, before she barely nodded. "Really, I can just head out, I don't mind-"

"I do," he said. She bit her lip, frowning, when she realized she could feel the anger oozing off of him. "You really think you have any right to just teleport in here-"

She had a flash, then, of sitting in the medbay, of seeing that ninth Doctor. She'd assumed, even with everything that had happened, that he'd be grief stricken and torn apart, because of his PTSD and the fact that he'd participated in literally the biggest war in all of creation.

But that was nothing like seeing him now. The Doctor. The one who'd lost everything. Who was still standing, in spite of it.

_The one she'd never see again._

Pain wracked her. She cleared her throat at the memory of the fact that she would never see that Doctor, her Doctor, again, and she raised her eyebrows, barely shaking her head.

"I'm sorry," she said, quietly, cutting him off.

"I. Am. Talking!" he shouted at her, and she raised her eyebrows before she nodded.

"Right," she said. "Right, I-"

He advanced three steps on her. "You're going to tell me how you got here and you're going to do it now," he said, and she raised her eyebrows even higher, holding up her hands.

"My name's Anna Monroe," she told him, and at the look on his face, she spoke faster. "I-I'm an all powerful being, I didn't mean to teleport here, I swear, I-"

"All powerful?" he scoffed at her. "That's a bit of a wide scope, isn't it? How'd you mean, all-powerful? And, if that is true, then what're you doing here, on my Tardis, right now?"

She held up her hands higher. "Like I said, I meant to teleport into your future. I had no intention of being here, right now. I'm sorry for that."

He searched her, seeming to see something genuine in her eyes.

"I can come back later-"

"You're here now, might as well tell me what it is you think that I owe you," he told her, and she frowned before she barely shook her head.

"You don't owe me anything," she told him. "I promise."

"Thanks," he said, sarcastically. "I'm feeling really reassured. Now, if you're done making up stories about being all powerful, do you want to tell me what it is that you're actually doing here?"

She raised her eyebrows before she quickly made a galaxy appear in front of him. He did stop at that, staring at it, before he furrowed his brows, looking over at her.

"Is that supposed to convince me of anything?" he asked her.

She quickly teleported them to said galaxy without any breathing apparatuses, floating in the open space around them. She could feel his surprise and confusion and fascination. But, she could also feel that anger that she was sure she would have to get used to.

She hadn't wanted this for him, she'd told herself. But, she was here, now. Besides, she'd always expected him to tell her to undo it. Maybe this was fate, that she was always meant to travel with a Doctor who had those scars. Maybe the best she could hope to do was help him to heal, in any way that she could.

She'd failed one Doctor. She wouldn't fail this one.

Times changed in ways she never accounted for. After their initial encounter, the Doctor had been wary of her but had wanted to keep a close eye on her (her being all-powerful being and him just coming off of the biggest war in creation and wanting to preserve the universe against any threats, perceived or otherwise, would do it). He didn't outright say it, but she knew it just by the way he was acting, because she knew him. Well, she knew _a_ him.

At any rate, it meant that she'd ended up coming along to the whole _Rose_ debacle, though she had tried to minimize herself as much as possible. Truth be told, she hadn't really given much thought to what she would do when Rose came along (because she knew it wasn't an if, but a when, even if she hadn't had a feeling about it. Please. It was Rose Tyler. Of course it was a when). In the end, she decided on popping out every now and again to give the pair space when she could, citing 'important all-powerful being business' that didn't actually exist and usually resulted in her just jumping to a few days or weeks into the future.

She came back on one particular day to find out that _Father's Day_ had happened without her entirely. Although he hadn't outright shown it to Rose on the television, it turned out that he _was_ fuming. This surprised Anna, especially when she sat down on the jumpseat, cross legged, as he vented to her.

"You've got all the power in the universe," he'd said to her. "You don't pull stunts like this, saving people what can't be saved."

She laughed a little at that, outright, but cleared her throat as he looked over at her. "You're joking, right?" she asked.

"Something you need to tell me?" he asked her.

She would occasionally feel a pang of longing, seeing the way the Doctor would move or act or do this or that, memory of the six years she'd had with her Doctor rearing their ugly head. She still hadn't quite healed from the whole debacle of failing him so spectacularly.

That pang hit her now, seeing the Doctor with a wrench in his hand, grease smeared to his face, but she pushed it aside, even as the unease drifted through her.

"I mean, no, not necessarily," she told him. "I don't break laws of time, but I don't have to." She leaned back against the jumpseat. "I can just send them to alternate dimensions where they can exist peacefully for the rest of their lives without disrupting the flow of time."

She couldn't believe she'd never thought about it before _Time of Angels_ , but she was just happy that she'd thought about it all. Small favors, she supposed.

He frowned, searching her. "Sorry, what?"

She furrowed her brow. "I've explained this to you."

"You bloody well haven't."

He was suddenly alive, standing as he searched her, the wrench still in his hand probably more threatening- no, definitely more threatening than he meant for it to be. She held up her hands.

"Okay, sorry, I just, you know, I created an alternate dimension where I can, you know, send people what aren't supposed to live out the rest of their lives here, but they also don't have to die. You know, if it's-"

She didn't understand his pure desperation that was suddenly pouring through him and around him.

"Did you do that for… for Gallifrey?"

Until she understood, all too well.

She raised her eyebrows, opening and closing her mouth.

"O… oh," she said.

It hit her, then. Why couldn't she? Why couldn't her alternate dimension be the place- or, an alternate dimension be the place it be stored until such a time that he'd realized the solution? She thought about it, but felt a feeling rush through her, and she frowned. Crap. Okay. She couldn't, could she? No, because moving it from the pocket universe-

Oh, damn it. Damn it all.

She looked down at the grating, swallowing the lump in her throat.

"No," she said, unable to help that she felt disappointment at herself and at the situation cresting through her.

But, this wasn't her loss. Technically speaking, this wasn't either of their losses, but the Doctor had to think that it was something that he'd lost, in order for time to keep moving.

"No, I'm-…" she bit her lip, looking up at him before she shook her head. "I'm sorry," she said, quietly.

It was a wild sort of deflation, a manic desperation that was quickly trying to be toned down or turned into better energy.

"No, no, of course," he said, and he turned away. "See, this is what I mean, you can't do it, and you don't, break any rule that you fancy whenever you fancy, and that is just what's so spectacular about you, Anna Monroe, is that you have all this power and you don't abuse it whenever you feel-" he cut himself off. He'd barely nestled himself underneath the console before he suddenly popped up again. "You know what? Bloody useless sitting around here! So many sights to see, so little time!"

"What're you doing?" she asked.

"Waking up Rose!" he called back to her. "You better be sitting there when I come back, or so help me, I'll track you down myself!" He quickly ran back to the console room itself, a wild look in his eyes. "We're having an adventure!"

She couldn't help the guilt she felt at that.

Time continued to move on. Jack joined them briefly, and she actually got to know the immortal man she'd only ever seen on television. He _was_ an outrageous flirt, and it was hilarious, how easy it was for him. _Like breathing_ , she thought, watching him flirting with a coat check girl.

"I swear, he gets worse by the minute," Rose said suddenly popping up next to her. She glanced over at her, barely smiling, before she turned back to look at Jack.

It wasn't that her and Rose didn't get along. There was something about the two that had never quite… clicked right. She thought it probably had to do with the fact that Anna never really integrated herself into the Tardis lifestyle, always coming and going as she pleased, and Rose didn't understand that. The Doctor and the Tardis were adventure enough for her. What could Anna possibly have outside of that that could've been grander than that?

Not that she'd ever sat down and talked with the blonde about it. It had been strange enough adjusting to being inside of episodes when she'd never had to deal with it before. Traveling with Rose and the Doctor had never really been in her grand plans either, so being around Rose for the first time was a journey in and of itself.

It wasn't awkward. It just wasn't as easy as Jack made flirting appear to be.

But, having Jack around helped. She no longer felt like the third wheel, even if Jack's flirting wasn't the only thing that was completely and utterly underdone on the show. They'd mentioned how in love with the Doctor he was, but they never really got into details. As it turned out, Jack was unabashedly in love with him, even if Rose couldn't see it because she was so in love with him herself.

Anna herself had been in love with him, at one point, and even if those feelings did spark every now and again, so too did the remembrance of the pain at the fact that she'd lost a Doctor already, and although this Doctor was every bit the Doctor as hers had been, he still wasn't her Doctor.

The point was, she felt more like she belonged when Jack was around, especially because it meant that the Doctor and Rose could sneak off to their own little world and she wouldn't be stuck by herself at whatever planet they'd landed on that day.

"There's just something about you, Sparkles," Jack said (long story short, she'd gotten very drunk and had created a galaxy in front of Jack because it was very pretty, and apparently, the takeaway was that it had been sparkly, and that's what you missed on _Glee_ ). "I can't describe it. It's like… you're always expecting something. Like there's something on the other end of this for you and you're just waiting for it to happen."

She raised her eyebrows, smiling slightly. "Isn't that basically life? Like, Jack, you've just described the entire human existence- oh my gosh, Jack, you've just-"

"No, no, but I'm serious," he told her. They were currently sipping hypervodkas in the media room while Rose and the Doctor got up to who knew what. He swirled his martini glass and contemplated her entire existence. "It's like… you've got all this power and you still act like you're on the back burner of your own life."

She straightened up at that, shaking her head. "No, but that's not true," she said.

"Are you sure?" he asked, searching her. "Because it seems to me like there's a whole life here waiting for you, and you're just too scared to grab it. Well, scared's a bit the wrong word, but it's… it's like you're waiting for permission," he said. "And I'm not sure what for. You're Anna _freaking_ Monroe," he reminded her. "You're the most powerful being I've ever come across, and considering just how much of the universe I've seen, and screwed," he threw in, because he wouldn't be Jack if he didn't, "believe me, that's saying something. What are you waiting for, Sparkles? Because permission can't be it. Nobody can give you permission to live your own life. You just gotta do it, you know?"

She raised her eyebrows, smiling slightly. "I'm not waiting for permission," she told him. "I'm waiting for the right Doctor."

It was meant to be a glib reference to something that he would say, and she'd no idea why she said it, but it was too late to take it back, especially when he raised his eyebrows.

"Which means what?"

She picked up the bottle as she got up. "It means, Jack, that the universe is wide and vast and that there is much life to be lived, and time waits for no woman."

"If you think that your spouting off three 21st century Earth fortune cookie sayings will distract me, you're sorely mistaken!" he told her, before she laughed and leaned over, kissing him on the top of his head. She searched his eyes.

"Good night, Jack."

"It _could_ be a very good night," he agreed, able to run a hand gently along her side because she'd put herself within reach of him. "If you aim your kiss just a… little bit… lower."

She started to pull away but he caught her shirt in his hand, searching her eyes. He gently reached out, gripping her other side, before he started to gently pull her down.

"Jack-" she objected.

"If this isn't what you want, then say the word," he quickly reassured her, though he didn't release the hold he had on her. "No harm, no foul, and we can forget that this ever happened as soon as you walk out that door, I promise." He searched her eyes. "But, you can't wait your whole life for someone else to give you permission, and if that's what you're waiting for…" his eyes flicked to her lips before he started to reach up.

She hadn't been with anyone since her Doctor. Pain flashed through her chest, because even being an all powerful being didn't make her impervious to pain.

No, she thought. It could make her impervious to pain. She could choose to be distant and cold and to never feel another thing again, pain included. But, if she wanted to be the right kind of being of power, she had to let herself feel that pain. No matter how much it burned through her and made her feel broken.

"There was someone else," she said, quietly.

"Who?" he asked. Anna's eyes were closed, now, but she could feel his breath barely fanning her face.

"The Doctor."

The name fell out of her mouth without her say so.

Suddenly, the whole story came pouring out. Or, as much of the story as she could tell, anyway, without exposing Jack to unnecessary secrets that he shouldn't have to keep. She told him about being in a different timeline with the Doctor, how she'd saved Gallifrey in that one and ended up traveling with him before events had taken her from him and he'd ended up dying because she'd failed him.

"I guess not because _I_ failed him," she finally (and miraculously) admitted, picking at her nails as she looked down at her hands. "It was always meant to happen," she said, softly, even as she hated the words. "It's just hard sometimes, being what I am and accepting that sometimes, people have to be in pain for the universe to keep turning."

"That's a bit of an oversimplification of things," he told her, softly, and she smiled slightly before she shook her head.

"What, nothing else to say? No, my god, Anna, you mean you actually-"

"You're Anna Monroe," he told her. "I'm surprised you haven't done a lot more, actually, all things considered. It does make sense, though, now, about what I said. You're waiting for permission to love a man that you lost."

She opened her mouth to object before she remembered the Doctor, the one in the future who'd looked at her so hopefully and so eagerly, and she closed her mouth again.

"Maybe I am," she said, quietly.

"But you love him already," he said. "Even if you won't admit it, you do," he said.

"Look who's talking," she said without thinking about it, looking up at him before she bit her lip, looking back down.

She was and wasn't surprised when she heard Jack moving to her, when she felt a gentle hand on her leg.

"Let's do ourselves both a favor, then," he said, gently sliding his hand up her leg. She bit her lip harder. "Just for tonight, let's give ourselves permission to forget him. God knows he's probably forgotten about us by now."

She put her hands on his chest, her eyes flicking up to look at his, to see the sincerity and something that could've been desperation but also, she knew, wasn't.

"We're not doing this for the right reasons," she said, quietly.

He scooted closer to her, gently maneuvering himself until he was pressed up against her. "If you think that's what sleeping with someone is about, you've been sleeping with the wrong kind of people." His head dipped down to her neck and he pressed a gentle kiss against the side of her neck, her cheek, her lips. She allowed it, for a moment, allowing herself to give in. She imagined, then, what the other side of this would look like. Her, having slept with the actual Captain Jack Harkness. She started to push against his chest harder… before she realized that she'd no idea why she was.

"Tell me that it doesn't mean anything," she told him, quietly. "That it'll just be for tonight, and that's it, and in the morning, it'll be like it never even happened."

He gently tilted her head back, whispering in her ear. "You took the words right out of my mouth."

As she started to kiss him, as things progressed, she couldn't get it out of her head. This thought that, after Rose had disappeared from the Doctor's life (and what a painful and complicated that thought was all by itself), Anna would've been… whatever she was to him, and known that she slept with Jack, of all people.

She had no guarantees that they would be anything more than what they already were, and that aside, being more than that wasn't what she wanted, anyway. This Doctor was different from the one that she had known, in so many ways. If she got together with this one, even as unlikely as it was, it _would_ be like she was replacing _her_ Doctor.

She didn't want that.

She didn't want this, either.

"I'm sorry," she told Jack, pushing him off of herself.

"Hey," he said, and she looked over to see the reassurance on his face. "It's fine. Like I said, no harm, no foul."

She barely smiled. "You really are a diamond in the rough, you know that?"

"Look who's talking," he said, and his eyes flicked down to her lips, probably simply out of habit and not out of any intention of actually doing anything.

Still, it wouldn't do to tempt fate, and she quickly stood, walking from the room and putting Jack behind her.

Or trying to, anyway.

"Sparkles," he said, and she raised her eyebrows, looking back at him. He wasn't looking at her. "What you said, about sometimes people needing to be in pain to make the universe go round." He looked back at her. "I don't think it's as simple as that."

She smiled sadly. "Good night, Jack."

"No, Sparkles, listen," he said, and she looked down at the floor, but she didn't exit the room. "It's not that people need to feel pain to make the universe go round. They just need to be alive for that to happen." He shrugged. "Sometimes, pain is just a byproduct of being alive. That doesn't mean that pain is a necessary evil, because it's not morally good or bad. Sometimes, it just is." He smiled. "For what it's worth."

"Well," she said, patting the door jamb. "Thank you." She searched the ground, looking over at him as she raised her eyebrows. "For what it's worth."

He leaned over the couch, probably doing his best to look as enticing as possible before she disappeared forever from the night and the bubble of possibility that it had created.

"Good night, Sparkles."

"Good night… Fortune Cookie."

He laughed at that, and she laughed too before she turned from the room, leaving him behind.

He'd be gone from the Tardis just a few short weeks later, but he'd never leave her mind. Not completely.

But, time did trudge on, and the Doctor regenerated.

In a lot of ways, it was easier being around this Doctor. For one thing, her and Rose's dynamic shifted drastically. In those first few hours post-regeneration, Rose acted like she and Anna were old war buddies, having gone through a similar trauma. In fairness to her, it _was_ traumatic. It was one thing to see it on television and even to mentally prepare herself for it. It was another thing _entirely_ to see the Doctor switch from being big ears and leather jacket one second and turn into a new man the next. Jarring wasn't a good enough word to describe it, and she'd been expecting it. Rose hadn't.

So, Rose made sure that Anna was in her sight, checking in on her and silently grieving their loss (even if it wasn't necessarily Anna's loss to grieve).

It was immediately obvious, when the Doctor woke up, that this new body of his was _electric_. He _oozed_ charisma out of every pore, and it almost would've made her laugh if she wasn't so relieved. Here he was, the Doctor, and she could now be around him without having to stare at the face of a dead man she still grieved.

Instead, it was the new new Doctor, rude but still not ginger (or, she supposed, rude but not ginger. Still not ginger would come along, given some time, and what a thought that was).

Even seeing him flirt with Rose put her at ease. Like she'd said, he was the Doctor, but it no longer felt like she had any romantic claim to him, so seeing him and Rose flirt didn't break her heart (even if there was no part of her that had even known that was a thing that had happened).

It was especially easier being around this Doctor because she could change things, now. It started on that very day, with the Sycorax ship. She'd been all set and prepared to watch it be blown to absolute _bits_ , but she'd been surprised with the stirring of a feeling, and she quickly shot out a shield at what might've been the absolute last second. She turned to Harriet Jones, Prime Minister, to see the look on her face. Harriet didn't know the extent of her powers. Just enough to know that Anna was the only one that could be behind this sudden miracle (though, judging by the look on her face, nothing about this was miraculous for Harriet).

"Sorry, didn't feel like witnessing a genocide via the terrified acts of one person," she told her, though she'd no idea if it actually was genocide. She doubted it. What sort of race carried their entire species on one ship? For a start, it was just bad planning.

"That wasn't your decision to make!" Harriet said. "You have no idea the repercussions of those actions-"

The Doctor laughed.

She'd genuinely forgotten about him for a second, and when she turned to look at him, she saw the look on his face. It was manic and it was gratitude and it was anger, all rolled up into one package that only David Tennant himself would've been able to portray.

"Did you really just say that to Anna Monroe of all people?" he asked, and he looked over at her. "Seriously, who does she think she's talking to?"

"You're not always here, Doctor, and today-"

He looked back at Harriet Jones, Prime Minister. "Today proved that I don't always _need_ to be here to protect the Earth. Anna Monroe just did that all on her own, protecting the Earth from the likes of an example like _you_ , the woman who would've shot an alien race in the back because she was a little _scared."_ He searched her eyes, fire lighting up in his. Strangely, it was the first time that she recognized him as the Doctor she'd once known. "I gave them the wrong warning," he said. "I should've told them to run, as fast as they can, because monsters like you are coming, the humans so afraid of change that they'd rather kill than understand."

"Those are the people that I represent," she said.

"No," Anna spoke up. "You don't. You're meant to represent the best and the brightest of them. The ones who look forward to a future where they aren't just looking up at the stars, they're walking amongst them."

"Oh, and what a pretty, naïve notion that is," Harriet said. "You must think so highly of yourself. Look at you, Ms. Monroe, protecting even the cruelest of aliens from the wrath of those trying to protect the very _innocent_ people they used as nothing more than _bargaining chips_. They would've enslaved us and killed us, and who's to say they won't do just that, now that you've let them run off back to the stars to mount a better defense? Who's to say that they won't tell everyone all about the 'defended Earth'? Who's to say that there are those who won't take that as a challenge, and come back, and do much worse?"

She shrugged. "You don't have that guarantee," she said. "But, then again, nobody has the guarantee that you won't go out tomorrow and be hit by a bus. Life is not meant to be lived in fear. It is meant to be lived in the excitement of possibility. And, I'm sorry that the woman who's supposed to usher in Britain's Golden Age can't see that."

"What does that make you, then, Ms. Monroe? Another threat?"

She was surprised by what the Doctor did next.

He went into full on battle mode, standing up tall. "Don't challenge her, because I'll tell you what. She won't be the one taking you up on that challenge. I will, and I'm a completely new man. I could bring down your government with a single word."

"You're the most remarkable man I've ever met, but I don't think you're quite capable of that."

"One single word," he told her, and Anna frowned. What about the six words that were supposed to do it? Why was he claiming he could do it in one?

Well, whatever his claims, his one word whispered into Harriet's right hand man's ear did the trick.

She never found out what it was, and it felt impertinent to ask, especially because they all moved on from it so quickly.

But, then again, that was life on the Tardis. Threatening Britain's government one moment, and then joyfully bumping into her the next as they walked away from a disgraced prime minister, celebrating that she'd saved the lives of thousands of Sycorax, off to celebrate her first Christmas with the new Doctor.

Well. The new, _new_ Doctor, at any rate.

It was the first change she made, but it wasn't the last. She saved people she'd been so sure she wouldn't be able to. The nun in the new Earth hospital, for one. For two, the numbers at the Torchwood estate went way down, nearly twenty percent less than what had been originally. For three, _Girl in the Fireplace_ hadn't even occurred at all, now.

It was things like that, things she'd thought she wouldn't be able to change but had. It made it easier to be around the Doctor, knowing that she could save more than she couldn't.

There was also the fact that he was adamant she be included more. She couldn't even remember the last time she'd been on a jaunt away from the pair, despite the fact that this was when he was supposed to already be madly in love with Rose. Why wouldn't he want her to allow them to have some time together, just the two of them?

No, except, why would he? This might've been the Doctor that loved Rose Tyler more than anything, but this was also the Doctor that had lost more than anybody should. Accepting, fully and completely, that he was in love with Rose would be like playing with fire.

And, it was. Because it was the three of them until it wasn't.

 _Doomsday_ came. Things changed there as well, with Pete Tyler not coming in at the last second and catching her. She was surprised to find that she'd actually manually had to send Rose to Pete's World in order to save her life.

What was even more surprising was that, when all was said and done, after the Doctor had had the conversation that had ended with, "Rose Tyler-," it wasn't Donna Noble that was stood in the console room.

It was the woman that had replaced her in the _Turn Left_ timeline.

For a long moment, Anna just stared at her. She just stared and stared and stared.

"Um. What?"

It hit her, then. Anna hadn't ended up in the timeline she was meant to be in. Somehow, she'd ended up in the _Turn Left_ alternative once more.

"Oh, god."

She looked over at the Doctor and realized that she was about to have to let him die.

Her heart shattered into a thousand pieces at the thought, and the confusion splayed across his face wasn't just about the woman standing in the console room. No. Instead, it was also about the fact that Anna looked like someone had just killed the man she loved.

She didn't think about it. She couldn't. Instead, she teleported out.

She found herself once again standing on the Doctor's Tardis, grief oozing off the walls. There were a lot of questions that she had, about what had happened, why she'd ended up in the _Turn Left_ timeline again when that wasn't supposed to happen. The fact that she'd had to let another Doctor die hurt worse than she'd accounted for, and she started to once again teleport off the Tardis, to give herself a minute, before she realized that wasn't happening.

"Oi!" a voice called from the other end of the hallway.

"Christ," she whispered, looking back at the Doctor, the one still wearing the War Doctor's clothing. "Hi, sorry," she said.

 _"Sorry?"_ he mocked her. "For what?"

"Teleporting here. Meant to get to a future you. My bad, I'll just-"

"Hold on, you think you can just punch a hole through my Tardis and you get to just run off and not hear a few choice words about it?"

"For god's sake, I didn't just-" she started, her upset and grief pouring through into her words. She stopped herself at the last second.

Her own grief wasn't the one that got to take precedence here. She hadn't lost a planet. She'd failed two Doctors.

She wouldn't fail this one.

Except, she did.

She lived a whole other life with this Doctor, the ninth Doctor that she'd already failed twice, and the tenth Doctor she'd failed once, living the same timeline over again, just to get to the other end of the painful _Doomsday_ to see that awful bloody woman's face. It was the Donna Noble replacement.

Not Donna Noble.

Which meant that she'd ended up in the _Turn Left_ timeline. Again.

"What the-"

She teleported out, to the right timeline.

"Oi!" she heard the Doctor say, and she turned back to look at him.

"Okay, before your silly little self rants about me punching holes into your Tardis, I did no such thing. No, I didn't mean to teleport here, but no, I by no means think that I'm about to get off scot free, even though teleporting here was an accident. Sorry. I'm Anna Monroe, by the way. Hello. Lovely to meet you."

And, it was.

Until it wasn't.

Because, no matter how many times she teleported, she always found herself in the _Turn Left_ timeline.

It wasn't until the twelfth one that she'd gotten the idea to check, as soon as she landed, to see that she had made it to the _Turn Left_ timeline. Again.

A possibility occurred to her that had never occurred to her, even as the _Turn Left_ Doctor started to ask if she were deaf and did she really think that she could punch holes in his Tardis and get away with it scot free?

Because for every timeline version of Anna, there was a _Turn Left_ version. But, there was something that she'd never accounted for. Because the _Turn Left_ versions would never remember the correct timeline, because they had never had a chance to live in a timeline but the _Turn Left_ timeline. It meant that there would always be an Anna who would only ever remember the _Turn Left_ versions. And, that Anna just happened to be her.

So, what did she do? She couldn't keep putting herself through this. She was Anna Monroe, the woman who was able to do anything, and she'd been unable to save one man thirteen times, and why? So that Rose Tyler could have her happy ending? So that a different version of herself could live her happily ever after, eventually finding out what they would end up being? Twelve different versions of her, all getting twelve different versions of the same happy ending… and she never would. Because that was this Anna Monroe's lot in life. That was her purpose. It was to exist and perpetually fail the man that she claimed to love, over and over again, the most magnificent man in the universe and she couldn't even save one measly version of him.

But what if she did, she wondered? Just once. Just one timeline, just to see what would happen.

Except, she realized, she could reach the correct timeline. She was the Anna that would get to see what she would become. She was giving up her own happy ending, messing up another happy ending, which was the version prior that had spawned her.

But, was it fair to the Anna that came after her? The one that would be stuck in an eternal loop of always living through the _Turn Left_ timeline?

They had to stop this cycle, somehow. She just didn't know how.

It was time to bring in the big guns.

It was time to find Anna.

It was more than just about finding an Anna, though. She went to the prior one. Anna 12, she was calling her, in honor of _The Magicians_.

"No, that would've been a really good idea!" she said, standing in the Chen market place. "Why didn't I think of that? How does that work, anyway, that you had an idea that I didn't have?"

"It's like-"

"Driving down the same road but driving a little bit further along and deciding to turn left instead of right, yeah, you're right, point being, I can't believe we didn't think about that, either, considering our track records when it comes to believing in happy endings and all." Anna 12 looked over at the Doctor contemplatively, and Anna 13's heart ached. She wanted that. She wanted a Doctor that she had saved.

But, not if it came at the cost of creating an Anna 14. She wouldn't do this to anyone else.

"What do I do?" she asked, looking back at Anna 12.

"Well," she said. "I mean, you could just-…" she looked up and to the left of herself. "I'm not sure I'd be down with that, considering that it would be like killing, well, Anna 14, I suppose," she said, and she looked down at Anna 13. "I was about to suggest making sure that Anna 14 doesn't get made, but I mean, that's the textbook definition of the Trolley problem right there, isn't it? Technically speaking?"

"Okay, so what do I do?"

She shrugged. "You could always consult the Original Anna."

She frowned. "What for?"

"Because Original Anna doesn't have artefacts like we do."

She frowned even deeper. "What… what?"

"Think about it," she said. "When you make a copy of something-"

"But we're not copies."

"Fine," she said. "But there's still bound to be some damage, even in cases of just creating alternate timeline versions of yourself. Imperfections that get passed along. Ooh, or maybe the opposite happens, like… No, but that wouldn't work, either, because- you get my point," Anna 12 said.

"I'm not sure I do, but I'm not sure that consulting Original Anna is necessary," she said. "Besides which, weren't Original Anna's powers off when Anna 1 visited her?"

"Yeah, did we ever get an explanation about why that was?"

"Something about unconditional love and trust, of which I'm finding it harder and harder to grasp," she said, bitterly.

"Hey," Anna 12 said, and she looked up at her. "We'll figure this out. Promise. Just need to- Okay, hey!" she said, as the Doctor came over to her.

It felt wrong to be near him, in the way that this was bone deep and she just knew that he wasn't hers.

He looked between the two of them before his eyes landed on Anna 12.

"Do you want to tell me why you're conversing with an Anna from a different timeline?"

Anna 12 looked startled, and Anna 13 couldn't blame her because she was startled as well.

"You can tell that just by looking at her?"

"Shut up, course I can," the Doctor said, glancing over at Anna 13. "Be a bit of a rubbish time lord if I couldn't differentiate between timeline versions. Everything all right?" he asked, looking at Anna 13.

She bit her lip before she shook her head, looking down.

"No," she said, honestly. "Everything is not all right."

"Can you give us a minute?" Anna 12 asked, and her heart yearned for him to say no because, despite the fact that he wasn't hers, he was still alive and was a version that she hadn't failed.

"Yeah, yeah, sure. Let me know if you need anything?"

"Course, sure, see you in a minute!"

She didn't look up at him, worrying her bottom lip as she heard him speaking.

"Yeah, see you in a minute."

A moment later, Anna 12 spoke to Anna 13. "Look, whatever the solution is, you're not going to find it here. Just head back to Anna 1. I'm sure she'll be able to help you."

She frowned, looking up at her. "Why can't you help me?"

She shrugged. "Honestly, genuinely, because it's not my mess to clean up," she said.

Anna 13 felt a shock roll through her.

"That's never stopped us before."

"Look, I'm happy here," she told Anna 13. "Happy in a way that I never thought that I would be, and quite honestly, I don't want to clean up a mess that I had no part in creating. I-" realization crested through Anna 12 at the same time that hurt ricocheted through Anna 13, about always being the one that people didn't want to help, about always being the one that got left behind, about always being the one who'd be left holding the bag and that was her lot in life. "Oh, no, no, ixnay on that, haha, I'm an idiot, it's a feeling!" she looked back down at Anna 13. At the look on her face, she held up her hands. "No, no, serious-seriously, it's-it's a feeling, you won't find the solution here, it'll be with Anna 1, I promise!" She reached out, grasping onto her shoulders. "Chin up, eh? You're doing exactly what we always thought we would do, which is to do the kindest possible thing." She felt surprise roll through her. "How easy would it be to simply accept your happy ending and let this be another Anna's problem? But you aren't," she said. "Because you are trying to find the solution that creates a happy ending for everyone. You are the very definition of amazing."

She smiled, looking down at the ground, before she looked back up. She looked over and saw the Doctor not so discreetly trying to keep an eye on them, and she looked back at Anna 12.

"Take care of him," she told her counterpart.

"Couldn't pay me enough not to," she told her, and they both shared a smile at that. "Now, get a shift on. Anna 1's waiting."

She wasn't, but Anna 13 had found a new purpose. No longer would she be the Anna that got left behind. Instead, she would be the one that solved everything.

She could only hope, as she teleported to Anna 1, that that would actually be the case.

At the sight of the ring happily sitting on Anna 1's finger, she couldn't really help the, "Oh, I hate you." It just flew out of her mouth without her say so, because all that she could picture was the happy ending that she'd never gotten.

Anna 1 just looked at her bizarrely. "Or, hello, as people used to say."

"Sorry, sorry, just… do you remember how you felt, when you saw the ring on Anna… 's finger? Like she'd just replaced him?"

"… Can I have a little bit more context?" she asked.

"I'm-"

She quickly dove into the explanation. By the end of it, Anna 1 was looking horribly guilty.

"How did we not think of that?" she asked, looking up at Anna 13.

"I genuinely don't know," she said. "Maybe it's really true that some things have to be lived, they can't be told."

Anna 1 shook her head. "Maybe," she said, and she looked down. "This might be something for… what did you call her, Original Anna?"

"What?" she asked. "Why?"

"Because I'm not sure what to do here."

"Okay, but you're Original Anna, and so am I, and so is Anna 12 and so is Anna whatever else. We are all Original Anna. The only difference is, I've lost more Doctor's than she has."

Anna 1 looked at her, furrowing her brow. "If you really believe that, then why are you standing in front of me?"

"Because I need more help than just one brain," she told her. "I need two of me."

"Or, maybe, what we need is someone outside of us. Right? Like a different perspective? Like the Doctor?"

Anna 13 had been doing a spectacular job of keeping it together. Even seeing Anna 12's version of him hadn't reduced her to anything more than uncomfortable.

So why was even the mere mention of Anna 1's Doctor enough to send her into a sobbing mess?

"But- I don't- what's wrong?" Anna 1 asked.

"I just- I can't do this anymore. I can't keep failing him, I just, I can't-"

"Hey, okay, then you won't!" Anna 1 said. "We'll figure something out, I promise, we- _that's_ just bad timing."

"Or, hello, as people used to say."

Anna 13 automatically stood.

It was jarring, to say the least, to only see two regenerations of the Doctor for 12 versions, only to get to the 13th and see a different regeneration. There was no good way to explain why, just that seeing this version of the Doctor… it was more than unnerving. It put her on edge. It wasn't just weird, it was wrong, somehow. She didn't know how or why. She just knew that it was.

"Do you want to explain to me why a different timeline version of you is standing in the console room, crying?" he asked, glancing between the two of them.

He was currently in his Clara outfit and she wondered, in a tiny corner of her mind, if Clara was still the Impossible Girl, and what it would be like to keep that secret. Over time, the secrets she'd had to keep had gotten easier. What would it be like, she wondered, to keep new secrets? What would it be like, to live a whole other life? It felt like so long ago and so far away that she'd been the Anna who'd lived her six years with the Doctor. Who was she now, she wondered? Was she still Anna? Or was she someone else entirely?

Anna 1 was not on the same train of thought.

"You can tell that just by looking at her?"

Realization lit her up from the inside out. "It's easier to tell, too, the further away from a timeline a person gets," she said, and the Doctor looked over at her, scrutinizing her. "I can feel it, how wrong it is, like…" she furrowed her brow. "Not like he shouldn't exist, but we shouldn't be existing in the same place."

The Doctor instantly relaxed at that. "Okay, good, it is you!" he said. "I was worried there for a mo that we'd had another psychic infestation. What can I do for you?" he asked, before he frowned. "No, but hold on, I thought- why aren't you with your Doctor?"

She felt a deep seeded misery flowing through her. "Because I'm the version of Anna that's only ever experienced the _Turn Left_ version of events, and I'm trying to figure out how to make it so that I don't have to experience this again, because even if I get my happy ending, Anna 14 will only ever remember the _Turn Left_ version of events before- except, it's almost like this version, the _Turn Left_ version, is an Anna unto herself. And she doesn't like existing this way, so she- I, sorry, _I_ thought I'd do something about that. Tried to get to Anna 12 but she directed me to Anna 1, so here I am."

"Sorry, just to clarify, _Turn Left_ is…?"

"The episode where Donna created- ha, Donna created, where that alternate timeline- parallel timeline? Was created around Donna."

"Right- Oh, _dear_ ," the Doctor said, realization crossing his face as he turned to look at Anna 1. "How did you two not think about that- hold on, you said you'd visited Anna 12? What does that make you, Anna 13?"

She nodded miserably.

Realization crested through his eyes. "Wow, that's-that's just- I'd give you a hug but if you're feeling the wrongness from here I don't think it'll help much. Crickey, Anna, the things you do to yourself sometimes," he said, and he rubbed at his forehead before he looked over at Anna 1. "Is there a way you can fix it?"

"That's what we're currently trying to figure out. We were just about to call you in for this little pow-wow, actually. Any ideas?"

"Off the top off of my head? The obvious answer is to just make it so that Anna 14 doesn't come into being, so the line of Anna's ends with Anna 13."

"That would be like killing her," Anna 13 pointed out.

"Meh, only very technically," he said, waving his hand back and forth. "Because technically that's like saying any possibility you didn't make happen would be a version that you would've killed, and that isn't accurate _at all,_ " he pointed out.

"No, because I'm not actively seeking out to make sure that a specific Anna doesn't exist in that scenario, whereas in that version of events, I'd be the reason that she doesn't exist."

"Okay, well," he said. "In that case, you could just head to a timeline where, oh, what did you call it, _Turn Right_?"

" _Turn Left_ , which is actually the whole point of the episode."

"Right, what?" he asked, looking over at Anna 1. "What does that mean?"

"Did Donna not explain this to you?"

"She didn't really delve into details, no. Explained the gist of it, but said it was fading like a dream, if I recall correctly, which I usually do in these scenarios, so. Point being, what? How can 'turn left' be the whole point of an… 'episode'?"

"Right, so because Donna turned left instead of right, she ended up meeting you, saving your life, all that good stuff. It's actually a really cool concept, exploring the idea of how little actions can have big impacts on our lives."

"Yeah, but did you really- I mean, _you,_ of all people, _really_ need a television show to tell you that?"

"I was, like, thirteen at the time that it aired? Though, honestly, probably not, because let's face it, it's me, and I'm _always_ amazing."

She cleared her throat. "Can we get back to the point at hand?"

"Just as soon as you tell me what the point was, I'd love to do that!" the Doctor said, looking back at her.

Looking at him, she wanted to burst out crying again. Not because it felt wrong to be in the same room as him (because honestly, it was bearable), but because this was a Doctor that had gotten to live, who'd gotten to experience life and she'd never seen a Doctor who'd made it past 903.

"No, right, I remember!" he said, suddenly. " _Turn Right_ \- nope, sorry, _Turn Left,_ which is the whole point, eh, see, I'm catching on," he said, half-winking at her. She tried for a smile that ended up feeling more like a grimace, and at that, he seemed to get a bit more serious. "But, the point is, you can probably end up in a timeline where _Turn Left_ never happened."

She frowned, searching him. "Sorry, what?" she asked, speaking around the lump in her throat that hadn't quite disappeared from her need to cry.

"Well, yeah," he said. "An infinite number of possibilities and all that, why wouldn't there be a timeline where _Turn Left_ never existed?"

She felt absolute astonishment racing through her, and she turned to look at Anna 1. "Can you kiss him for me?"

Anna 1 laughed at that. "Happily," she said. "Before that happens, though, why don't you head out and find a Doctor of your own?"

She started to before she paused, looking between the two. "Okay, but what about-"

"Hey," he said. "I already know what you're about to say. What about all the Doctor's who never met you and had to feel that loss without you there to help them through it? As someone who has lived both lives, I can tell you now that, given the choice between having an Anna in my life but knowing that the cost was having an Anna who was forced to watch me die, and having no Anna at all, I can tell you now that the latter will always be preferable, for the simple fact that my happiness is not worth the suffering that _Turn Left_ Anna will have to go through for the rest of time." He searched her, smiling slightly. "Do me a favor. Find the version of the Doctor that's free of _Turn Left_ , and make sure he knows exactly how lucky he is to have you in his life. Will you do that? For me?"

She felt a full bodied relief flow through her and she nodded. "Thank you," she said.

"No, Anna," he said. "Thank _you._ For everything you've done for me and for everything you continue to do." He did his half-wink at her once more and, instead of the desolation she had felt before, she felt a thrill run through her. "Good luck."

She smiled widely. "You too," she told him.

It was with those words that she teleported away.

It was easy to find a non _Turn Left_ version of the Doctor. She felt relief in untold measure falling through her when she checked, just to be sure, and came up that it was the right one. She'd finally ended up where she was meant to be.

Not even standing in the Tardis and feeling her oozing with grief, or hearing the Doctor's "Oi," for the 14th time could deter her from that relief. She turned around to look at him, unable to help the smile on her face.

"Hello," she said. "I'm Anna Monroe. I've come to help you."

"What, by punching a hole in my Tardis?" he asked.

She rolled her eyes. "Shut up, I haven't done," she told him. "The only thing I've done is teleport in much sooner than I meant to, so sorry about that. Don't worry," she said, holding up her hands in 'surrender'. "I'll be sure not to run off before you've had a go at me for teleporting in uninvited. Cross my heart."

"Well, it's rude!" he said. "You can't just go teleporting in wherever you like. How have you done, though? Because you're right, you didn't punch a hole through the Tardis to do, and that is a feat when the shields are up to a maximum capacity, which they are."

"Well, considering I'm an all powerful being, it wasn't half the feat you're making it out to be- though, let me be clear, I didn't mean to come in uninvited. That's not how I roll," she told him.

"Oh?" he asked. "How do you 'roll', then?"

She smiled, and she felt as if she might never not be smiling again.

It was only with remembrance of who this Doctor was that she felt her smile dimming, and even then, it was only out of respect for his pain. This was the Doctor that thought he'd lost his entire world, and more than that, that he was the one who'd pulled the veritable trigger.

That was okay, though. Or rather, it would be, because Anna would do what she had always done.

She would help him, for however long and in whatever capacity she could, for the rest of his life.

And what a long life that would be.


	28. Turn Left Part 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: Wowie wowie wow! This chapter clocks in at a whopping 20,000 words, so settle in and get ready to enjoy some fiction.  
> Also, I want to reiterate that I did not forget about a thing. It's important that y'all take note that I say this WAY back when (I have no idea if I said this on AO, but just note that I am saying it now). I might not have followed... well, any of the plan, but I did have one thing planned out since the beginning, and it means that I did not forget the thing. This will not be relevant for at least one more chapter, but it's important that I note it now so that y'all don't think I messed up and then just threw ideas at the wall and hope that one stuck. It was planned out, way before the beginning. That being said, I'm not sure y'all will be fond of it, but I'm happy with it, and it's in the spirit of the story that I'm writing, so.  
> That being said, MAJOR trigger warning for talk of suicide and depression. Without spoiling it, this chapter gets really into the details, so if that is something that you need to avoid for your own mental health, then I completely and utterly respect that. I've denoted the points where you can stop reading and then start reading again with ##AM##.  
> I still don't own Doctor Who.

"Okay, but-but you can just turn your powers back on, so you can get home," he pointed out.

The Doctor watched as she raised her eyebrows, turning to look at the console room around her. He got sidetracked for a moment, as a memory butted up against his mind, about what Anna had once explained to him. He hadn't been her Doctor before he very much was, which meant that this hand't been her Tardis until it was. It meant that Anna One also saw the same thing, the console room not being 'hers'.

It was a strange concept to think about, different 'versions' belonging to different people. It didn't matter to him. Both Anna's were his, plain and simple, even if Anna One didn't see him that way and never would.

"Doesn't work like that," she told him, and he frowned.

"Come again?"

"Already 'came again' twice," she mumbled that nonsense comment, before she shook her head, looking at him. "In order to have my powers turned back on, I have to die."

He frowned so hard he could feel the muscles straining. She looked startled by the look on his face.

"Surely, you're- you're not suggesting-" She raised her eyebrows inquisitorially, before he smiled congenially but without any meaning behind it. "We'll think of something else, then," he said, pristinely, clasping his hands together before he moved to the console. "Just track Anna or-"

"Oh, no, no, Doctor, I-" she laughed, and he felt his hearts harden, though it was only because the image of Anna's dead body was now playing through his mind. "I wasn't in any way suggesting that I _die_ , geez, no," she said, and he glanced over at her, smiling uneasily (not at _all_ wanting to admit that he'd thought she was suggesting he _kill_ her, which was _so much worse_ ). "I was just saying that that's how I would theoretically turn my powers back on. No, I'm-I'm happy chilling here until she gets back from her ever illustrious vacation at- _The Magicians,_ was it?" she asked.

He looked back down at the controls, feeling that unease tracing through him once more. Images of all the times that Anna had died were traipsing happily through his head like they had any right to be there. Now, all he wanted to do was get to where Anna was. Maybe that wouldn't have been the case before, but he'd only just gotten her back. The thought of this Anna-

But, no, he couldn't think about that, and anyway, she was fine. She had other all-powerful being business to attend to. She didn't need him to do a quick pop-in.

But what if she did? What if she-

She was _fine_ , he told himself. She could handle herself. Even if she did-

"Doctor"

"Hm?" he asked, looking over at Anna One.

"I- oh."

Anna One had been _fine_ not moments before. No, she genuinely _did_ look worried, a frown covering her face.

"Hold on," she said, looking at him. "This isn't how this was supposed to play out."

He felt his unease only growing.

"How'd you mean?" he asked.

She bit her lip, glancing around. "I always thought that- I mean, it wasn't _just_ a thought, it was- did I ever explain feelings to you?" she asked, looking over at him.

He raised his eyebrows, doing a quick sweep of his time sense, before he barely shook his head. "It's there, on the edge of my reach, but time's been rewritten so thoroughly and so much in the past couple of days that it'll take some time for the little things to filter in," he told her. Anybody else and he wouldn't have bothered even trying to explain, but this was Anna. She understood, possibly better than anyone else.

"Okay, well," she started, and she dove into an explanation.

he frowned. "That sounds like-"

" _Time sense_ , yes, I know, whatever, look, the _point_ is," she said, "is that I had a feeling that I would _have_ to travel your timeline out of order. With the way that the universe was, with you-" her eyes barely widened and she smiled, trying to cover up the fact that she'd almost blurted out something she shouldn't have done. "-well, with-with the way that the Time War had ended," Ah. She didn't want to bring up the whole 'genocide' bit. Very kind of her, "in this timeline, I would've had to've traveled around your timeline out of order. The universe would've needed people to be saved in a very specific order, and _before_ you ask, I've no idea _why_ that is." he furrowed his brows before he nodded his understanding. Something about this was familiar to him, as he gently probed for the- not the memory, but something similar to it, in his time sense. "But, because I effectively ended the Time War, that wasn't the-"

She stopped outright, looking down at the glass floor, before she barely raised her eyebrows, shaking her head.

"Oh, I'm a bloody moron," she said, quietly. Over the years, Anna One had developed something of a European accent, but it was still intermingled with her American one. It was almost a little funny to him, even all these years later, to hear an American use European curse words.

"You really aren't, but would you like to clue me in on the wonderfully brilliant thought process you're no doubt having?"

Even with all of the abilities in the universe, sometimes her self-deprecation leaked out. He liked to overcorrect on compliments when that happened, just so that the universe would balance itself out. Besides, she was his wife, he was allowed to compliment her as much as his hearts desired, which they often did. Among other things. He was getting sidetracked. Back to the point at hand-

She smiled, but it was bizarre, in it's own right. "Because I tailored my feelings to the television show," she told him, and he furrowed his brow.

He waited for a moment for her to continue, but she didn't. He raised his hands up in question. "Which means what?" he asked.

She waved him off. "It's like... I can tailor my feelings to certain outcomes. In order to save as many people as possible, I had to keep the television show in order, which meant that I had to turn the universe to how it would've been if the television show universe had actually existed, so I had to-"

"You're talking about changing timelines."

"No. What? No," she said, looking at him like she'd never heard anything more ridiculous. "No, I'm just-"

"Yes, you-you just said that you're tuning the universe to your specifications."

She looked at him with a look that read much the same. "No, I... just meant-"

"That makes so much-"

"Doctor, no, I don't tune the-"

"-sense! That's why you get a feeling, because- but hang about, you haven't done," he said, looking back at her. "Not since you've been here."

She raised her eyebrows, holding up her hands. "Hello?" she asked. "Not the all-powerful Anna."

"No, I don't-I don't mean Anna One, I mean, Anna. She hasn't gotten a feeling since she got here."

"Maybe she just didn't tell you," she pointed out.

"But wouldn't you do? And you did, and you have! So why hasn't she?"

That wonderful question wasn't answered when the Tardis suddenly threw them both off to the side.

#####

What followed was some of the most bolsterous piloting he'd ever undertaken. When it was over, the interior of the Tardis was darkened. He quickly went to the button on the control panel, calling out Anna's name to see if she was okay, since he hadn't seen her in all the chaos. It appeared that the Tardis was recharging, that it also appeared that he'd been correct in thinking that they'd ended up in a parallel something or other (which he knew because Anna had programmed a function on the console to tell him just that, which he was currently looking at).

"Ugh, Doctor?" she called out.

"Up here, give us a tic," he said, and he ran down to where she was.

She'd landed in the underdecks. With the help of his night vision, he managed to make out that she was clinging to the railing on the staircase, though she was crumpled against it, folding over it as she made a brave effort to just be. Her face was darkened with what he assumed was blood, and without a second thought, he pulled out the sonic to use as a torch.

"Oi," she said, cringing back into the railing and squinting her eyes against the sudden light.

"Sorry," he cursorily apologzied.

For the next few seconds, it was only the sound of the sonic pervading the air as he did a quick scan of her head.

"Minor concussion, give us a mo," he said, and he quickly grabbed her jaw in his hand so that he could steady her.

" _You could ask_ ," she said, sounding annoyed. "Instead of just _manhandling_ me like a... _manhandler_." A look of consideration crossed her face. "Though, I guess you'd be a _womanhandler._ That's-that's dumb, that's a gendered word and it's dumb," she said, trying to shake her head, even as the Doctor kept her in place.

"Definitely concussed," he said. "Pointing out nonsense things-"

" _Oi,"_ she said, the word long and drawn out, and he barely smiled.

"-and not even asking about what happened, or why the Tardis threw us around like confetti just then?"

"You, my friend-"

"Bit more than a friend," he cut in, kneeling down as he got into some more of the detailed repairs with the sonic.

"-technically," sh esaid. "Cuz you're a version _of_ my husband, but you're not my husband, are you?"

He shrugged. "Technically-" he felt himself grow colder. "Suppose we haven't. Still. Suppose that almost does make us different people," he mused, his words disjointed as his thought processes moved much faster than his physical mouth ever could. "I'm sure being happy all the time would change a person on a fundamental level."

She frowned. "Ow," she complained.

"Sorry," he muttered, though he didn't stop, merely readjusting his grip on the sonic.

"You're happy all the time?" she asked.

"Sorry?" he asked, for a different reason.

"Don't be _sorry_ , just answer the question, outer space doofus," she muttered.

He smiled slightly. "Been hanging out with Donna much?" he asked.

"No- wait, yes, I- Oh, that does feel a bit better," she said, surprise lighting up her face.

"Sonic," he said. "It's _magic_. Now, what were you saying, about my being happy all the time?"

"I... don't know," she said.

He hummed before he pointed out the obvious. "You could ask about what happened," he said.

"Or, you could explain it without me _having_ to ask," she pointed out.

"Could do, yeah," he said, but he didn't elaborate further.

She huffed out a faux-annoyed breath. Or maybe it was just annoyed. Either way. "Fine, mister cryptic, what _happened,_ oh ever illustrious and super impressive Doctor?" she asked, putting on a sarcastic tone.

He still spoke. "Illustrious _and_ impressive?" he bopped her on the nose. "You can stay."

She rolled her eyes, though she worked out her jaw now that he'd released it. She started to get up but he put a hand on her thigh, holding her in place. She looked up at him questioningly, and he quickly reached into his pocket, producing the handkerchief with a flourish.

"For the blood," he pointed out, starting to reach out to dab at it. She blocked him and he furrowed his brow in question.

"I can do that myself, you know," she said.

He barely smiled. "Have you got a mirror?" he asked.

"No, but what's that got to do with-"

"Have you suddenly gained the ability to see your face through my eyes?"

"No, but I still don't-"

"Then how are you supposed to clean the blood off of your face?"

"Oh." She blinked. "Right." She lowered her hand. "Continue."

"Ta."

He handed her the sonic a moment later, directing her to hold it. She started to glance around distractedly, though she hissed when he dabbed at a spot too close to the still healing knock to the head.

"Thought you fixed it with your 'magic' sonic," she said.

"Maybe have told a small lie about the 'magic' bit."

"No, really?"

"You're very sarcastic today," he pointed out.

"I'm very sarcastic all the days," she told him. "If this Anna isn't, that isn't on me."

He paused with his wiping the blood off of her face to search her. "Why _do_ you do that?" he asked her. "Acting as if you two are different people."

"We are," she said, as if it were that simple.

"Except that you aren't," he said. "You two shared the same experiences, the same life, the same everything. Why'd you think you two are-"

"Hold on, what _did_ happen?" she asked him.

He made the executive decision to table the conversation for now. "Something must've happened, pulled us off course, cause we're now in a parallel world. Tardis has to recharge, but until then, we've got twelve hours."

"Twelve? Wasn't it twenty four last time?"

"Well, yeah, but last time, I had to imbue the piece of Tardis with my regeneration energy," he told her. "This is a safety feature that you put in after it happened."

"Then why isn't it instantaneous?"

"It's not exactly an easy thing, what traveling through from one plane of existence to another- well, unless someone's you, of course," he said. "Then it's as easy as _breathing._ But, for us non-powerfuls, it takes a toll. The Tardis needs to-to collect herself, get her energies back in order. Trying to shove her normal energy at her all at once would be like-like trying to shove a square into a circle. Except, it's nothing like that, forget that."

"You need a new tagline," she teased him.

"I don't say it that often," he muttered.

"I can think of ten instances off the top of my head," she told him.

"Really? Go on then, give us ten instances where I disregarded a metaphor and said that it was nothing like that."

"Seriously?"

"Very," he said. "What else are we gonna do, make tea? I could really go for some tea, now," he realized, about to ask her if she could make this versions money, before he realized that wasn't happening. Maybe he could get the kettle to work...

" _Imagine your universe, and then imagine a bubble on the side of the universe_ ," she said, in an imitation of his accent, and he frowned.

"Sor-"

" _Except it's nothing like that, forget about that._ That's one," she said.

He raised his eyebrows. "It doesn't count if you make it up," he pointed out.

"I did not!" she said, sounding properly affronted. "You said that- Oh, that wasn't a happy memory, what, you don't trust that I can remember word for word something that happened and then _actually-_ "

"Oh." The memory bled in, and he raised his eyebrows before he looked down at her, frowning. "Why would the memory of the Corsair being saved not be a happy memory?" he asked, taking the handkerchief away from her face.

"No, but I... Oh, I'm surprised I remembered to do that, here," she said.

"How'd you mean?"

"Well, I'd- Hold on, _how_ did I save the Corsair?"

He shrugged, dabbing at her face once more. "You just... did. Put him far into my future, mind, to 'keep the television show intact' or whatever, but still."

She frowned at that. "Hold on, _hold on_!"

He paused the handkerchief on her face, and she pushed his hand away.

"Anna should've gotten a feeling about needing to keep the television show intact in the same way, she shouldn't have even wanted to travel your timeline in order- she was the one who suggested it." She frowned, looking over at him. "Why is that?"

He raised his eyebrows, waiting for her answer.

"Well?" she asked.

"What- I don't know, you're asking me?" he asked. "It's not like we chatted about it, you know, even if I was relieved that- but never mind that, you've still got a spot of blood on your-"

"Relieved about what?" she asked him.

He sighed, looking down, before he shook his head. "I would've rather had a you in my timeline than not," he told her. "It was just nice, having that linear relationship with you as opposed to-"

"Her- no, sorry, continue," she said, and his eyebrows flicked down but he didn't comment.

"It was... nice. Different, I guess, having a you who I could be completely honest with, as opposed to one that I had to keep a whole life's worth of secrets from. Time isn't linear, especially not for time lord's, but having you travel my timeline in order was..." he shrugged before he shook his head. "I don't know," he said. "Different. Just different."

"Good different or bad different?" she asked, and he barely smiled before he shook his head, getting back to dabbing at her forehead with the handkerchief.

"That was one," he pointed out. "One time that I dismissed a metaphor-"

" _Abstract space is a bit curved. Imagine a banana. Except it's nothing like a banana."_ Her eyes looked up and away from him, before she raised her eyebrows. " _It's like two cars parked in the same spot, except it's nothing like that, forget I said that_."

He didn't speak until he'd already finished cleaning the blood off of her face. "That's three," he said patiently.

"... You know what, just because I can't remember all ten instances doesn't mean that you didn't."

"You know, I'm actually rather impressed that you remember as much as you do, especially in this state. How much of the television show do you remember?"

"I thought you were making a jab at my memory as a human, like _human brains are so tiny, I never know how you retain the ability to speak, but that's neither here nor there_?"

He frowned. "Who said that?"

A flustered look crossed her eyes. "No one," she said. "But the point is, now you're talking about the television show, which you never do."

She frowned as a look of realization crossed her face.

"What're we doing?"

He frowned as well, wondering if the concussion was more serious than he'd originally been led to believe via the readings on the sonic. And then he realized it was the sonic readings and those were never wrong (even if it didn't work on wood, but that aside).

"We're... sitting here, talking. Are you okay?"

"Yeah, I'm fine, I'm just... confused," she said, glancing around, and he started to figure out how to get into the medbay drawers without the power on, gently guiding her to the medbay. "No, Doctor, I'm fine," She said. "We're seriously just sitting here, talking, though? Like, that's what we're doing for the next twelve hours?"

He furrowed his brows before realization crested through him. "Oh, okay, that's... what you meant, no, yeah, we can head out, explore, if you're feeling up for it."

"What about gingerbread houses?"

"Just about to say," he said, as he walked them to the doors. "Probably shouldn't explore too thoroughly, shouldn't get caught up in gingerbread houses, and all." He smiled as he opened the doors, making the joke. "I mean, can you imagine, meeting-"

It was no longer a glib joke (considering she'd already done), as his jaw dropped at what he saw.

"Yourself."

They were in a busy New York plaza, Times square, if he were correct. On one of the big electric billboards that proudly declared advertisements, there was an advertisement that caught his eye.

A huge picture of his wife's face sat proudly there, a smirk resting on it. " _Anna_ ," it read, in elegant script, and right underneath, it read, " _Airs Thursdays at 10/9c._ "

He raised his eyebrows, looking down at said Anna, who was looking around, apparently not having noticed the huge billboard with her face on it.

"Something you want to tell me?" he asked, trying to get her attention away from the bustling New York City crowd.

"Sorry?" she asked, looking back at him. He frowned at the blood still on her eyebrow, and he quickly reached into his pocket, grabbing the same bloodied handkerchief, before he wiped the blood away.

"The billboard over there what's declaring proudly that you've a television show airing on Thursdays at 10/9 'c'?"

She raised said bloodied eyebrow before she flinched, hissing in a breath. She looked over at said billboard, and he waited patiently for her to see it before he grabbed her chin between his fingers, pulling her back to front.

"Well, would you- oi," she said.

"There's still blood," he replied. "Bit harder to get out of hair, even if it is just a random strip above your eye."

"You have them too," she said, before she said something under breath that sounded strangely like, " _barely_."

"And I don't think that it's any less strange on my face. Shall we?" he asked, nodding back to the Tardis.

"We shall!" she agreed, and she started for the street at the same time that he started to pull them back to the Tardis.

"What- you can't be serious, Anna," he said.

"What?" she asked, looking over at him. "You get to hear all about how your life is a television show-"

"You don't really bring it up all that often, actually," he said.

"-and you're not even _a little bit_ curious about a television show surrounding _my_ life?"

"Dear, let's just be reasonable," he said. "Let's just think about this. If a... _fan_ wants to take a picture with the ever effervescent Anna and posts it to something like... _Twitter,_ " he said the name like a curse word. "And the actress that plays you is halfway around the world... Do you see what I'm trying to get at?"

She quirked a brow. "No mention of what happens if somebody recognizes you?"

Horror quickly filled him. "Yeah, we need to get back to the Tardis _now_ ," he said, trying more insistently to tug her along.

"Oh my goodness will you relax?" she asked. "The PR department will probably just say that it's a PR stunt, you know, because Anna's all powerful and _if the actress is halfway across the world then how is she standing in New York City? Ooh,_ " she said, and if he started to laugh at that before he shook his head.

"Doesn't matter, every second we stand out here is a chance for us to get recognized-"

"It's New York City!" she said, pulling his hand. "The city that never sleeps which probably means they don't pay much attention to detail. Come on, haven't you always wanted to explore a parallel world?"

"Different dimension, I'd say," he said. "Because of the whole television show thing?"

She shrugged, gently rocking back and forth on her heel. "Tomato, dimensionally transcendant tomato. Besides which, what you're about to do, cooped up on a dark Tardis for twelve hours?" she raised her eyebrows again. "Hm?"

In the next nanosecond, he'd pulled her to himself so that she was pressed flush against him.

"I can think of a few things," he said, pushing her hair away from her face. "Just off the top of my head."

"Hey," she said, sternly, and he allowed her to easily push him off. "We've already talked about this. Married."

He held up his hand. "To the same person," he said.

She fixed him with a look. "If you really believed that, then why did you tell the other Anna that you 'didn't want to replace him'? Hm?"

He shook his head. "Because I am different from him, but you aren't different from her."

She raised her eyebrows, crossing her arms, the picture of defiance. "And how's that, then?"

He felt a sharp smile enveloping his face. If it had been anybody else, he might've glibly changed the subject or moved onto something shiny. But, it was Anna. He couldn't not tell her.

"Are you really telling me you think that the man who wiped out his entire race isn't different from the man who didn't?" he asked, barely furrowing his brows. "I thought you knew everything," he said softly, even as the look of regret devolved on her face. "But apparently, you don't know what wiping out your own race to stop them from wiping out the rest of the universe does to a person, how heavily that sits on a man's hearts." He fixed her with a softer smile. "And I hope you never have to."

Anna didn't say anything, even as regret sat in her eyes. She merely took his hand, kissing it, before she shot him a look that said it all. That she would be there for him no matter what, no matter how little he knew he deserved it.

He cleared his throat before he looked out at Times Square.

"You know, if you really want to explore, I don't see the harm," he said. "You're probably right, someone'll claim credit for the stunt, and then, well-"

"You'll explain what you were just talking about just then?" a too familiar voice asked, and he whirled around. "Good," he said, smiling an extra wide smile that covered the hardness in his eyes. "Love me a good story."

##AM##

This day had just gotten zanier and zanier.

First, it was the billboard for the supposed show, and now, standing in front of them, was what she assumed to be this version's David Tennant. Except, the problem with that little theory was that he was dressed in full Doctor garb, down to the Janis Joplin coat and the suit.

"Cosplaying as your character?" she asked, the words flying from her mouth before she'd had a chance to stop them.

He looked startled (well as startled as the Doctor _could_ look, in any case).

"Sorry?" he asked.

"You know. You're cosplaying as your character. Right? Yes...-"

"Sorry, I think you must have me confused for someone else. I'm the Doctor," he said, smiling widely. "Course, no need to tell me who you are, _Beth Marigold_. Got your face on a billboard and everything, congrats. Huge fan of the show, by the way."

"Sorry?" she asked, confused.

"Okay, yeah, no, I'm not, you caught me, haven't seen a minute of it, more importantly, though," he said, and he turned to the- well, himself. "You said something about wiping out your entire race, and since I'm fairly certain you're me, what with the phone box sitting right over there and the accent to boot, would you mind explaining to me just _what_ you're on about?"

She glanced between Doctors as she raised her eyebrows at the look on Bowtie's face. Realization came to her faster than it should've done.

"Oh, no, _I_ get it!" she said, looking over at Pinstripes. "No, sorry, he's a different timeline version than you. Must've arrived in a timeline where, not _only_ did the Time War _not_ happen, there's a television show about me _and_ you exist." She laughed. "Wow, this is wild. Although, did we have to-"

"What is she talking about? What Time War?"

"Ha, see? Nailed it!" she said, holding up her hand for a high five to see the look on Bowtie's face. She cleared her throat, looking back at the Doctor. "Okay, sorry, yes, not Beth... Marigold? I think you said. I'm Anna, the _actual_ Anna, the one that the television show is based off of. The Tardis has just thrown us here for _whatever_ reason and now we've apparently just run into another version of you," she said. Pinstripes glanced over at Bowtie before he looked back at Anna, giving her his full attention. "That other version of you being _this_ you, so, _hello_! Lovely to meet you! Sorry, this one seems to have been shocked into silence which, believe me, is a trick-"

"What do you _mean_ , 'What Time War?'"

"And he's back, hello," she said, looking back over at Bowtie.

"That one that nearly decimated the _universe?_ The one against the daleks and the time lords that nearly did _just that?_ "

"Daleks?" he asked. "What's that, what's a dalek?"

Anna couldn't help it. She burst out laughing.

"Now _really_ isn't a time to laugh."

She stopped at the cold tone he'd taken with her. She raised her eyebrows, looking over at him.

" _What_?" she asked, exaggerated at the look on his face. "I'm not _laughing_ at your pain, I'm laughing at the fact- I toyed around with a few different ideas before I ever went to your dimension, and one of them was getting rid of the daleks completely, just sort of... depositing them in a different dimension and letting their history play out that way so that a universe never would've been affected by them." At the continued look on his wife, she shrugged. "Guess one of the other Anna's must've gotten bored and done so. Or, this is like a Texas usher situation," she considered. "No, wait, I just... saw that..." she raised her eyebrows, glancing between the two. "Imma be real honest, I've no idea what the point was, what were we talking about?"

Pinstripes had apparently gotten tired of shenanigans. "What is she on about? Why is an actress talking about creating dimensions and the like, and more importantly, why are you hanging out with her?"

She wanted to mess with him because, well, why not?

"Ahem," she cleared her throat, pristinely, before she held up her left hand. " _Married_ , thank you very much."

He looked downright horrified. " _Married?_ " he asked, glancing back and forth between the two of them. "Have we _really_ lowered our standards so much-"

"You know, I'm _fairly_ glad that you two are making this out to be one big _joke_ ," he slung at them. She didn't realize they'd dropped hands until that moment, when he turned to look at the both of them. "Yes, it's _really_ laughable how my _whole_ race _died_ in a war that didn't even have to happen because those _pepper pot_ machines of death never even had to exist in the _first place. Really,_ " he said, and she started to feel herself grow colder because she was getting angry. "I'm glad you two are getting along so _splendidly-_ "

" _This isn't my fault_ ," she got out, through gritted teeth.

"And that means _what,_ exactly?"

"Your'e trying to insinuate that, instead of ending the Time War, I should've prevented it altogether by doing this, you're blaming me for not doing enough, and I'll-"

" _What_? Anna, _no_ , are you- you don't know me _half_ as well as you think you do if you think Id' _ever_ blame you for this," he told her, and she gritted her teeth but didn't tell him about the time he'd told her to undo it. "I'm talking about _myself_. Anna, do you have any- _any idea_ how many opportunities I had to head back to their creation and _end them_ before they even _began_? Do you have _any_ idea how many _times_ I let them _live_ out of some-some misguided sense if _mercy_? This is on me, Anna, not on you, and it's gone on _long enough_."

He started back for the Tardis, rage in his step, and she quickly reached out, grabbing onto his upper arm.

He _yanked_ himself from her grip so hard that she wondered how her wrist didn't break from the force of it, but that didn't deter her. She simply reached out once more, stepping in front of him as she grabbed both of his arms.

" _Think_ about who I am," she said, through gritted teeth as he looked down at her, angrier than she'd _ever_ seen him. " _Think_ about what _I've_ done, and then seriously tell me that you can do a _fraction_ of an _inch_ of what I've managed to achieve here. Blame yourself for a thing that I didn't even think that _I_ could, or _should_ do, and then _stop_ blaming yourself because you've realized that you are _just_ the Doctor. You're not _The God_."

His nostrils flared at that, his eyes growing wider, before he yanked himself out of her grasp, turning around and running his hands through his hair.

"Does somebody want to fill me in on what's happening?" the Doctor asked, and she sighed before she turned back to him.

"Are you growing exceptionally slow in your old age or are you just doing that thing where you appear dumber than you are to gain more information than you already have?"

He blinked at her. "You're seriously telling me that I _married_ an actress," he said.

"No, I'm _seriously_ telling you that I married a _different_ version of you, and that I'm _not_ Beth Marigold, but the character that she portrays. ... Or... something along those lines, I don't... It's something like that," she told him. "Something... along those lines, look, it's complicated, Doctor? Still with us?"

"I'm always with you," he said, bounding back over to her, that fake energy and mania ramped up. "Now, onto bigger and better things. Need to get the missues back, come along, dear-"

"You _need_ to give me the longer version of _whatever_ it is that she's talking about. 'Cause that can't be Anna Monroe from the television show, _Anna_."

"I think you'll find it is, actually," she said, at the same time the Doctor spoke.

"And why's that, then?"

"Because Anna is a suicidally depressed human girl who sings about how she's trapped in her life. I mean, I have to give it to the show's production value, they are _catchy_ tunes-"

"No, yeah, you're right, completely rubbish, that," he said, before he tugged Anna along. "Come along-..."

He stopped at the look on her face. The one she was desperately trying to conceal, as the desperately tried to push away the memories of wandering around the Las Vegas hotel like the ghost she wanted to become.

He'd known her for too long to not read through her mask as easily as reading his favorite book. His face went through a myriad of emotions, glancing back at the other Doctor, before he barely shook his head.

"No. No, but..." he said, looking at Anna, taking in her expression.

She shook her head. "It's-it's fine, really, it is-"

"Do the two of you want to fill me in-"

"Shut up a minute, give us a mo," he said, as he drew Anna away from the pinstriped Doctor. She glanced at him, giving him a sheepish smile that he looked at, almost bored on the outside but very much calculative behind the mask _he_ wore as easily as breathing. "Anna, what's he talking about? What does he mean you're a suicidally depressed human?"

She quickly shook her head. "No, I mean-" her eyes widened before she shook her head again, taking a step back. Or trying to, anyway, except that the Doctor caught her hand and held her in place. "Doctor, I can't, it's not my story to tell."

"I don't understand what that means," he said.

"It means that the other Anna, the one that _you married-"_

"Married you as well," he said.

She shook her head, frustrated. "Doctor, I'm not-"

"Even if I do trudge along with your... notion that you two are different people, I did marry you. In that timeline what got rewrote?" he asked, and she felt surprise wafting through her, though why, she wasn't sure. She'd married another version of him. It only made sense that she'd loved this version that much, too.

If she did, though, how would she have felt okay heading back to the other him at the end of it? She never would've done. She never would've wanted to. She couldn't have just left her husband behind.

Something about what the 13th Doctor had said, about leaving her behind ran through her mind. It was exactly what the Tardis had wanted her to do, just jump around like the Doctor's were interchangeable, but they weren't. They were all the Doctor, yes, but they were all unique in their own respect. She was suddenly very glad that she hadn't, but she pushed this from her mind as the Doctor continued.

"I married you."

"Even so, I'm not the Anna that's _currently_ your wife. And, this is something that she should get the chance to tell you. I can't take that from her, I just, I can't."

"Anna, it's _your_ story," he said. "Of course you can tell it-"

She shook her head. "I can't," she corrected him. "I won't. This is just-"

"Because you still feel that way?"

"Doctor, no," she immediately corrected him once more. At the look on his face, she realized what she'd failed to, that he suddenly had a business like intent that he hadn't before. "No, I promise, I'm not-"

"Then why not just tell me?" he asked. "Because that's the only reason that I can come up with, is because you still would've wanted that quick out and my knowing about it would've prevented that from happening."

"You really think-"

_You would've been able to stop me?_

She was so glad- she'd never been _more glad_ in her entire life that she hadn't said a sentence than she did in that moment.

She opened her mouth to finish that sentence a different way before she barely shook her head, frowning.

"I don't know," she said, looking down at the ground. "I don't know why I didn't-" Before understanding took her over, and she understood it all too well. Her face flattened out as she looked up at him. "I didn't tell you because I didn't think that you would understand."

"You didn't think that _I_ would understand?" he asked, an incredulous look on his face. "Seriously, _me_? After everything that I've been through and you don't think I understand something like depression?"

She shook her head. "Imagine that you can do anything and everything," she told him. "Imagine that you had the ability to fix any wrong int he world, including yourself. And then tell me that you would understand why a person like that would ever be a thing like depressed, never mind suicidal. If they can fix all the things in the world, what would they have to be suicidal about?"

Pain, of all things, crossed his face. "Oh, Anna..." he said, quietly, before he gently took her face in his hands. "Depression isn't about the things that you can _do_. It's about the things that you feel. In my experience, emotions are the most complicated thing that there is."

"But I..." she started, before she shook her head, looking down. "Yeah, suppose you're right," she said, quietly, before she shook her head again. "I'm sorry," she said, looking back up at him.

"Absolutely not," he told her. "There's no need to apologize for this. It is your story. I... _do_ wish that you had told me sooner, but you don't owe me an apology for that. I promise," he said, her cheeks still cupped in his hands.

Realization crested through her and she frowned.

"Hold on, why didn't I seek you out?" she asked, before she looked over at Pinstripes. She raised her eyebrows. "Do you remember ever meeting someone who can do the things I-" she rolled her eyes. "I claim I can do?"

He shook his head. "Nope."

"Okay, but _why_ wouldn't I?" she asked, looking between the two of them. "I told myself that if I did something like this, I'd come to you and explain the situation, so that you would know... what happened to the daleks?" She glanced between the two of them. "I guess? I don't know, so why didn't I?"

"Why didn't you tell me before?"

She frowned, looking back at him. "I already said," she told him.

"No, no, you're not understanding," he said. "You remember what I _just_ said? About why I thought you didn't tell me before? I thought it was because you didn't want me there to stop you."

She frowned, shaking her head. "No, but... but I didn't..."

"Okay, so it's-it's a different version of you that never..." he frowned, looking over at her, puzzle pieces seeming to click into place that he didn't want to. "You never really did tell me the story about how you utilized... your full powers..."

She shook her head. "I've no idea how that's relevant-"

"You died."

She frowned. "What? No, I- there was something else, some other way, and it took me about- but that's not the point, the point is-"

"That's what you said. That you would have to die, in order to restore-"

"Sorry, just wondering if I could butt in here for a minute-"

"Shut up, Bowtie told Pinstripes, except she couldn't even call him 'Bowtie' because he didn't look like anything but 'The Doctor'. "-your powers. I'm assumimg that means that that's how it happened in the first place?"

As much as he tried to put on a brave face, he looked like he wanted to puke as he paled, swallowing past a lump in his throat.

Or, to put it another way, like he was grieving.

She shook her head. I _promise_ you, that's not how it happened, and right now, it's important that you trust that. I'm sorry that I didn't tell you this, I get how distressing this is, but right now, we need to focus on Anna, the one who..."

She felt a sob burst forth from her chest and shook her head.

"She can't have, she _can't have._ " She shook her head, even as the Doctor brought her to his chest, shushing her.

"Anna, you're right," he said, into her hair. "We _do_ need to focus on that Anna. Because you didn't seek me out because you wanted to make sure that there was no way that- but it doesn't matter, because we can do this. We just need to find her, before she does something she can't live to regret."

She let out a breath, nodding. "Okay," she said, quietly, sucking in a quick breath as she tried to hold back a sob, before she released another, more calming breath. "Okay," she repeated. "We can do this." She pulled away from the Doctor. "If I know myself, I'll have-have left clues- Oh."

"Oh?"

"After 900 years-"

"1200."

"Then it's even sadder that I have to spell it out for you when I'm looking right at the solution."

"The television show? How is that supposed to help?"

She shook her head, looking at the other Doctor. "I know that this is confusing, and we're throwing around a lot of impossible ideas and you probably think that this is a trap, but we need your help. Please."

He searched her. "Answer a few questions and I might be inclined to do that."

She looked at him imploringly... before she remembered.

"Or, I could just do this."

She walked over to him, to stand less than an arm's length away, before she gently reached out. He looked at her, wary, but didn't even attempt to stop her when she pulled him close.

She whispered his name in his ear.

He _immediately_ jolted back, searching her eyes, before he swallowed past the too large lump in his throat (which appeared to be a theme with him today, and not at all usual for him).

"Right," he said, clearing his throat, before he nodded, looking between the two. "Right What do you need?"

"I'll explain on the Tardis."

"Right." For a second, the Doctor only had eyes for her, looking at her in a completely different light. "Right."

#####

"Her grief would've been leaking out everywhere, even if she didn't mean for it to," she explained to them as she wound her way around the console. Frustration filled her that she couldn't just automatically read the screens, but she tried to remember the step by step for activating it. She got to about the third step before she gave up entirely. "It would've translated to a from that would've, you know, been viewable by people."

"The television show," he said.

"Right," she replied. "So, there are probably clues, things in it that will tell us where she went to do what she'd done. Spend a long enough in any place and there's bound to be traces of things that get left behind."

"What if she'd not here?"

"Um..." she started, before she shook her head, turning to look at him. "Then we head back to... your... verse? Once the Tardis is charged. After that, Anna returns and then she deals with it. But we _are_ saving her."

"Hold on, there's more than two of you?"

She looked back at him, nodding. "At least three, now," she told him, before she handed out assignments. "You, look through the television show, see if there's any- crap," she said, looking down at the grating. The Tardis console hadn't even tried to change to compensate for two different Doctors, which made sense, considering they were... well, whatever they were.

"Crap?" he asked, after a moment, sounding fairly uncertain.

"What?" she asked, glancing between the two of them. "No, I just- I just realized you wouldn't even know what to look for."

"Which is fine because I"m not even sure what you're planning on doing otherwise?"

"Figuring out what to do when we find her," she told them. "There must be a way to-to trap her, or to contain her-"

The Doctor outright laughed at her, and at the look on her face, he parroted her earlier word. " _What_?" he asked. "You honestly expect this one to have something that would trap an all-powerful being just _lying_ around?"

"No, but I figured you could _cobble_ something together-" realization crested through her. "The-erm, the other you, _my_ you, he-he figured out a way to turn my powers back on without me dying. It means that-"

"How'd they get turned off, anyway? You never explained."

"And now isn't the time," she told him. "The point is, you, one version of you, figured out how to make me powerful. Maybe you could figure out how to do the opposite."

"What would be the point?"

Anger surged through her. "What do you _mean_ what would be the _point_?" she snapped.

"I mean, okay, great, so we trap her in the Tardis and then we counsel her through her depression and all is well and good until we find out that it was all just a trick so that we-"

"He," she said. "She's his responsibility, now."

Both of them looked thrown by that. "You're... volunteering him for this?" he asked. "To look after you?"

"Look, it's just..." she shook her head, glancing between both of them. "You've _no_ idea what my life was like before, but I found a way to power through it, I found a way to make it. If this version of me didn't, then it means that what she went through had to be a thousand times worse than what I did. It means..." she shook her head. "It means she's alone, completely. And I need to know that she's taken care of, even if it means volunteering someone who might not want to."

"No, I mean, he'll want to, I'm just surprised you'd ask this of him. You know, asking someone else for support, even for another you. It's just- never mind," he said.

"Do I not get a say about this?" the Doctor asked.

"Do you not _want_ to do this?" he replied.

"Well, no, it's not that I don't want to," he said, shoving his hands in his pockets as he swayed side to side. "It would just be nice to be asked, that's all."

"Doctor," she said, and he looked up at her, his eyebrows raised. "Would you _please_ be ever so kind as to help the woman- well a _version_ of the woman who you would one day gladly give your name to?"

He put on a cheeky smile. "Happily," he said. "But was that so hard?"

She rolled her eyes.

"Now, what's the plan? I actually have a bit of knowledge about the show. Like I said, have to give it to the production value, catchy tunes, except for _Light in the Farmlight_ , I mean, that one was _rubbish-_ "

She quirked an eyebrows, crossing her arms. "Thought'd you'd never seen the show," she pointed out.

"Yeah, I lied. Jackie's a _huge_ fan of it, always has it on when me and Rose come round. Reckon I've seen every episode at least once by now. Well, probably fallen a few weeks behind, to be honest."

"Ha, see!" she said, gently swatting at the Doctor's arm. "Told you Rose would always be there."

"Sorry, what?" Bowtie asked.

"Oh. No. Different you. Oh, yeah, that's... probably not great to bring up, just to make a point..."

"Can we get back to our point?" Pinstripe asked, sounding mildly amused. "What do you need?"

"In terms of...?"

"The television show," he told her, and she raised her eyebrows.

"Right," he said. "I don't... Um." She shrugged before she shook her head. "I don't know, I won't know what I"m looking for until I see it."

"What about your feelings?" Bowtie asked.

She shook her head. "Done for, at current mo." She looked over at Pinstripes. "How many episodes are there? And where is Rose, anyway?"

"Ah, back at mum's flat," he told her. "Got some things what need taking care of."

"Why aren't you with her?" Bowtie asked, and she looked over at him to realize how painful this all must've been for him, to hear about Rose and the like.

"She's a grown woman, she can handle herself," Pinstripe said. "More to the point, why do you ask?"

She raised her eyebrows. "I think I've an idea."

#####

"I still don't understand why this is necessary," Pinstripe said, standing outside the Powell Estate.

"How many episodes of Anna's show are there?"

"Nearing one hundred."

"And how am I, as a human, supposed to look through all of those episodes in less than a week?"

"You think you can watch all those episodes in a week?"

She scoffed. "Please. Never underestimate the power of a nerd," she told him.

"What's a nerd?"

"It's like a geek except not."

"Ah. What's a geek?"

"It means you're really passionate about something. Don't you know _anything_?" Bowtie cut in.

She rolled her eyes before she nodded up to the flat. "Come on," she said, and they walked upstairs. When they reached the flat, the Doctor didn't even bother knocking, just walking straight in.

"I'm home!"

"Took you long enough! Thought you'd run off with some-"

Rose spotted her at that moment.

"-bint."

Her eyes narrowed on her before she glanced back and forth between her and the Doctor.

"Who's this, then?"

From behind Rose, Jackie Tyler screamed.

"Oh my god, that's Beth, that's Beth Marigold! You've brought Beth Marigold to my flat! Oh my god!"

The narrowed eyes quickly turned to confusion and amused. "You are," Rose realized, even as Jackie rushed past her to get to 'Beth'.

"Oh my god, I'm such a huge fan! I love your show, ask anyone! Oh, come here, you!"

She was quickly on the receiving end of one of Jackie's hugs, and she couldn't say that she hated it.

"Jackie, that's-that's not-"

"Oh, I could kiss you!" Jackie said, turning to look at the Doctor. "How'd you know I was a huge fan?"

"Yeah, I-I didn't-"

"Never mind that, come here! Would you like some tea, biscuits, Ooh, we haven't got anything in, why didn't you phone ahead, like a normal person? Jackie asked, before she glanced behind Anna to to see the bowtie wearing uni professor wannabe standing behind her. At least, that's how Anna assumed she saw him. "Who are you, then? A friend of Beth's? Oh, look at me, acting like we're friends and all," she laughed, nervously.

Anna felt really bad, she did. She was almost tempted to continue with the act, if only because it appeared that this was a lifelong dream of Jackie's to meet the actual Beth Marigold.

Pinstripes killed that. Pinstripes killed it _quickly_.

"Jackie, that's-that's not actually Beth Marigold."

"Course it is," she immediately snapped at him, turning back to look at him. "Don't be so stupid. Who else could it be?"

She raised her eyebrows, opening and closing her mouth, before she smiled slightly. "Would it make your day better or worse if I said I was the actual Anna Monroe?"

Jackie (who, by the way, still had her arm clasped in her hand) glanced between her and the Doctor.

"What is she on about?"

"It's-it's sort of a long story, but that's the actual Anna Monroe. The one from the television show. Well, not from your television show, I suppose, but from... a television show? No, that's-that's not accurate either-"

"Doctor," Rose cut in. "What're you on about?"

It was strange, seeing _the_ Rose Tyler in person. She'd probably have to get used to it, considering that when she got back home-

She smiled slightly at the thought. Home. What a lovely thought. She would get back there eventually. She just needed to sort this mess out, first. Well, that, and get into contact with Sideways!Anna, at any rate.

Point was, it was strange to see the woman she'd only seen on television. She would get back there eventually. She just needed to sort this mess out, first. Well, that, and get into contact with Sideways!Anna, at any rate.

Point was, it was strange to see the woman she'd only seen on television. She'd been around Donna for nearly a year and a half, but seeing your husband's best friend was one thing. Seeing your husband's ex was another.

But, that was it, wasn't it? She wasn't even an ex. She was someone that he'd lost. Now, she would come to collect what was hers. She only hoped that she would accept what she was given, and not outright turn the metacrisis him down because she thought he'd moved on without a second thought.

This wasn't relevant. The point was, she had to get to... Oh, she didn't like thinking of her as Suicidal!Anna. Sad!Anna? Anyway, she needed to get to her, before it was too late, before she did something that, as the Doctor had said, she wouldn't live to regret.

"So, bit complicated," Bowtie cut in. "I'm the Doctor, hello."

"How'd you mean- hold on, you regenerated?"

"No. yes. Well, sort of-"

"He's... it's complicated, but that's a me, or a future regeneration anyway, though the bowtie? Really?"

"Oi!" he said, sounding indignant, straightening out his bowtie. "Bowties are cool."

"So... that's not Beth Marigold, then?"

"Don't be so stupid, of course it is!" Jackie was insistent. "Beth, tell them."

"Jackie, I'm- I'm really sorry, I'm not, but I am Anna Monroe and I really could-"

"But that's insane!" Jackie denied, turning to look back at the Doctor. "Even you can't make television show characters come to life!"

Standing where she was, Anna couldn't help but outright laugh at that.

#####

It took some convincing and a cup of tea from Rose, but Jackie accepted it. About an hour later, Jackie had only explained up to season 2 of _Anna_ , though Rose and Pinstripes had snuck off who knew where to do who knew what.

Glancing at the Doctor, she wondered if this _was_ hard for him, to be here, with Rose and Jackie and the possibility of a life that never was. Seeing Rose, he'd seemed so... fine. Maybe it was a front, or maybe it was actually how he was feeling. She wondered how that was possible. Any mention of Rose-

Except, she had been there, or a version of her, anyway, to help pick up the pieces. He'd even married that version of her. _Apparently,_ he'd married this version of her, too, even if she didn't remember it, and couldn't, because it hadn't technically happened to her.

She had a thought, then, about that time when she was laying with the Doctor in bed, after the whole alternate timeline debacle had occurred. The ache at the thought of that warm glow surrounding a life that had never been lived, despite the fact that it did exist, out there, somewhere in potential space. Glancing down at the ring on his finger, she supposed it was _had been in_ potential space.

"-and then she ends up in this dream sequence where she ends up in space, staring at this sun, and she starts singing about the virtues of life and death, and then she gets a call from her best friend telling her that she's moving, and-"

Broken out of her thoughts, she frowned, turning to look back at Jackie. "Wait, go back."

"To what? Her best friend moving bit? Yeah, that was rubbish, considering-"

"No, no, the-the space, the sun, the virtues of life and death, this is it!" she said, excited.

"All right, no need to shout," Jackie mumbled, and she straightened herself out.

"Why that one?" the Doctor asked, and she looked back at him.

"'Singing about the virtues of life and death'?"

"So, what, you think she'll fling herself into the sun? How's that supposed to do any _measure_ of damage?"

She shrugged, still looking back at him from where she stood. "Being in the center o fa sun would make it so that, anytime she started to come back, she would just-"

"Fair point-"

"Who's being flung into a sun?"

"Um..." she raised her eyebrows, looking back at Jackie. "Okay, so there's multiple version of the Doctor. Well, there are multiple version of me. Right now, she's trying to end her life because- well, you saw, on the show, everything she went through, except that it was a thousand times worse. Currently, we're trying to save her."

"But how's she gonna do that, then?" Jackie asked. "She hasn't got a Tardis like the Doctor to transport her to space."

"She's... like... all-powerful. They don't show that in the show because, let's be honest, who wants to watch a show about an all-powerful being? It would just be them fixing everything, all the time. There would never be any conflict, and everything would always work out. I mean-"

"Anna," the Doctor cut in.

"My point being, she has the power to get to the sun, so we need to figure out which one and how to get there- and I'm a total moron."

"What? Why?"

"Hang about, _you're_ a total moron, too! Oh, no. Wait." she bit her lip. "Well, she might- Okay, can you call the Doctor, or Rose, whoever's number you have, see if he can... Ask if he can look for any traces of dimensional energy that shouldn't be here. Those exact words."

"I'm on it," Jackie said, before she moved to the kitchen, doing just that.

"You know, she's much more agreeable here than she ever was there."

"Well, you didn't have 'Beth Marigold' to convince you to help her, now did you? Besides which, I'm not sure-"

"Sorry, sweetheart, he's asking to speak with you. Says I must not be saying it right. Tosser," she muttered, and Anna had to hold back the laugh as she took the phone from Jackie.

“There she is,” Bowtie muttered, and Anna frowned, barely glancing at him, before she spoke.

“Hello?”

“Anna, hello! Jackie’s asking me to trace ‘dimensional energy’? I’m sure that’s not what you said-”

“That’s exactly what I said,” Anna said.

“See! Told you!” Jackie replied.

“I’ve no idea what that means,” Pinstripes said.

“Ooh, say that again, love it when you say that.”

“Point is, what do you mean, what’s dimensional energy?”

She furrowed her brow. “Seriously?” she asked. “Dimensional energy? Like the difference between dimensions? Like, how me and this Doctor have different energy signatures than I’m sure the lot of you do, considering that we’re from… not here?”

“Oh, you mean _molecular energy_. Okay. Understood.”

“No, hold on, how is that different from dimensional energy?”

“Dimensional energy is energy that runs a dimension,” he told her. “I’ve no idea how to even start to make that relevant to what we’re trying to do.”

“Oh, can you just get a shift on?”

“Gladly. See you in a bit.”

“See you in a bit,” she agreed, before she hung up and looked back at Jackie. “Okay, so, we need to watch that episode you were talking about.”

“On it,” Jackie repeated, quickly moving to set it up on… what, it wouldn’t be a laptop. DVD player? Time travel was weird.

“What for?” the Doctor asked.

“Because _you_ might recognize- Oh, not if it’s a different- Jackie, can I have the phone back? I need to talk to the Doctor.”

“What for?”

“Slight change of plans.”

#####

About thirty minutes later, they still hadn’t gotten to the scene that Jackie had talked about, and Anna glanced over at the Doctor and Rose for about the millionth time.

She couldn’t not. This was like getting a glimpse at the life she’d never seen them have. The two of them, together and happy. What was even more was that this him was unburdened, more so than any of the Doctor’s she’d ever met. He didn’t have the daleks to contend with.

He might’ve been the Batman to their Joker, but they weren’t the Joker to his Batman. At least, she never thought so. It would be one thing if the daleks had been his driving motivation for traveling and saving people. But, that had been Susan and Ian and Barbara, more than anything else.

 _My friends have always been the very best of me_ , he’d said once.

Maybe some part of him had been fundamentally changed because the daleks hadn’t been around. But, from where she was sitting, glancing at Rose and the Doctor, their hands intertwined… enough had compensated from this change that he was still him. The Doctor, a mad man in a box, traveling with the best and brightest of humanity.

It was almost tempting, then, to ask him how his life had changed. But, she didn’t get up the nerve. Especially not with Rose sitting right there, humming the songs and singing the words under her breath.

“Ooh, no, hold on, hold on, that!” the Doctor said. “Back up, right there!”

She startled, looking back at the television.

“All right, no need to get excited,” Jackie said.

She backed it up, and Anna watched as she danced around on screen backwards before the Doctor ordered (and yes, he ordered her) to press play.

“Do you want to do it?” Jackie asked, and it was at that moment that they all collectively realized that he had the sonic screwdriver and therefore could’ve been. Surprisingly enough, nobody commented.

“Mum,” Rose said, softly.

She did as she was told, pressing play, and Anna once again started to sing, dancing around the sun.

“ _And I’ll finally find my freedom in the dead of night, when I circle the sun of Half Man’s Light_ ,” she sang.

“Yeah, I never really got that line. What’s it mean?” Jackie asked.

“Come on!” the Doctor said, hauling Rose up before he dashed out of the flat.

“Oh, yeah, no need to thank me or anything!” she called after him. Before Anna could comment, Jackie looked at her. “Is there any chance that this is all just a big wind up and you really are Beth Marigold?”

She smiled. “Afraid not,” she said. “But I’m sure if you-” she raised her eyebrows. “Never mind,” she said. “I have to head out, now, but thank you, for everything.”

“I know they don’t think I’m very bright, especially himself out there,” Jackie said, and Anna raised her eyebrows. “But I know enough to know that she is you. That Anna is also you, however that happened. Are you all right?” she asked.

Anna raised her eyebrows, before she nodded, before she bit her lip. “I wasn’t,” she answered, honestly. “For a really long time. But, I’m good, now. And, I haven’t felt like that in a very long time.”

“Promise me that if you do feel that way again, you’ll tell him about it. God knows that man can be useless as a button sometimes, but I know he’s helped my Rose more times than I can count, and I know that he can help you, too, if you need it.”

She felt touched. “Thanks-”

“And, if he is a useless tosser, you can always come back to me and we can have a chat. Despite what Rose thinks, I can do more than chatter away. I'm also a very good listener.”

As much as she probably would’ve laughed, she didn’t. Instead, she walked up to Jackie, hugging her.

“Thank you. You’ve no idea what that means to me.”

“Course, sweetheart. Anything you need, you just let me know.”

“Same to you,” she said. “And I mean that.”

She started to say that she promised, before she realized that there were some promises she couldn’t keep. So, she merely hugged Jackie harder, like she might lose her, or something.

It wasn’t until that moment that she realized the Doctor had tugged Rose downstairs with him, and realization crested through her.

She pulled back from Jackie. “I’m sorry, I’ve to-” she said.

“No, course,” she said. “Don’t worry about it. Good luck.”

She smiled. "You too."

#####

“Rose, I’m really sorry, but you can’t come with us.”

“Course she’s coming with us,” he said, moving around the console, as if it weren’t an argument. Technically, it wasn’t.

“Look, I get that- you’re brilliant, and you’re amazing, and I want you to know that I understand that, and appreciate it-”

“You’re talking like you know me,” Rose said. “I thought you said you weren’t from here.”

“Parallel universes- it’s like-… Oh. Um. No, it isn’t, I- look, I don’t have time to explain-”

“I’m not stupid, it’s not like you have to use small words,” Rose said.

Anna bit her lip, sitting back. Apparently, the Doctor had told Rose that the other Anna would be joining them. She wondered if Rose knew that Anna knew his name. She wondered if this version of Rose did.

“You’re Rose Tyler. You did what no companion has ever done-” she raised her eyebrows. Oh. That hadn’t actually happened here either. “You know what? I’ve just realized that I don’t know you,” she told her. “Which means that the other Anna won’t, either. Imagine getting judged by every single person in your life and feeling like every person you meet will do the same-”

“You’re right, you don’t know me, cause I would never judge her-”

“Can I finish a sentence, please?”

“Not when you’re trying to kick me off my home you can’t,” Rose said.

“I’m not doing that. This Anna being here won’t change anything, either, I just need the Doctor’s for this, because she won’t-”

“How’d you mean, the other Anna won’t change anything? Doctor?”

She felt anger flare through her as she looked at Pinstripes. “You didn’t tell her?”

“I… didn’t think it was relevant.”

“Relevant in the way that you two are literally going to be the only lifeline that she’s got, or relevant in the way that you just didn’t want to have a hard conversation?”

“Oi, don’t talk to him like that!” Rose said. “You’ve got no right, flouncing in here and expecting us to clean up your mess-”

“Okay, why are you angry with me? Seriously, what did I do?”

“Saying that I can’t come along, for starters,” Rose told her, straight up. “Coming in here, acting like you own the place, like you’re better than us for being all-powerful, and what does that even mean, anyway?”

She held up her hands. “Okay. Okay. I’m sorry, I am, really. If that’s how I was coming off, that wasn’t my intention, but I’m sorry,” she said. She watched as Rose’s hackles started to hesitantly lower. “I don’t think that I own anything. I just…”

She rubbed at her eyes, looking away.

“I want you to imagine being in my shoes for a second. Being reminded of- going through what I did, nearly… ending my life,” she spit out the words, “because of it, thinking that it’s all behind you… and then having to be reminded of all of it in the form of finding a different version of you that actually does end up doing it. Or will, if you don’t stop her.”

She looked up at Rose, to see the understanding blooming in her eyes.

“I know that I- well, we, came in like a whirlwind without much explanation, but the only reason that was a thing is because we don’t have a lot of time. Assuming that she hasn’t already done it and this isn’t something that isn’t existing at every point and therefore means that even we can’t change it, we need to get to her before she does something she can’t live to regret. You are wonderful and courageous and kind and I know that because you’re Rose Tyler, and that’s just a fact, but… but she doesn’t think that anybody knows how to be kind to her, and right now, that means that the only people she won’t run from at the first sign of us being there is the two of us. Three of us? You get what I’m saying.”

“I do, yeah,” she said. She searched Anna, looking considerably more relaxed, though she didn’t look as happy about it as she could’ve done. “What am I meant to do, though, when she does come back? If she won’t even trust me to be near her?”

She raised her eyebrows, looking over at the Doctor. “Honestly, I have no idea. But, look, whatever it is that you do end up doing, I’m sure it’ll help more than you know, because you’re Rose Tyler, and you are just…”

She wanted to put into words everything that she had ever thought about Rose, but, for one, she didn’t think it would make any sense to Rose, and for two, she couldn’t put everything into simple enough words because, she was, well…

“Rose,” she finished, and she hoped her tone conveyed everything she wanted to say.

Rose searched her before she somehow gave in. “All right, fine,” she said. “But, you lot pick me up soon as you can, as soon as. No dawdling on Kessell 24 or whenever.”

“Never,” the Doctor agreed.

It shouldn’t have surprised either of them when Rose reached up to kiss him, standing on her tiptoes to do it, but she knew that both of them were surprised.

It was the first time she felt a pang of longing, of something like phantom grief. The Doctor, her Doctor, had loved Rose Tyler with everything that he was. She knew that it was differently and for different reasons, but he’d loved her all the same. She’d almost never known the love of the Doctor because she’d thought she’d never live up to someone as spectacular as Rose Tyler.

Now, not only had she married him (twice, apparently), but she would live a long and happy life with him (if the fact that she was still with… their? Thirteenth self was anything to live by. Well, she said Thirteenth. Fifteenth, more like, if they were including the War Doctor and TenToo, but that was very complicated).

None of that was the point. The point was, Rose Tyler walked off the Tardis (after saying a surprising ‘love you’- No, the surprise was when the tenth Doctor freely admitted that ‘I love you, too’).

It was time to find Anna.

#####

“Kess-Ar Kree, or, when translated to English, Half Man’s Light,” the Doctor said. “It’s said that there was a supernova that threatened all of creation. An ancient being of incredible power saw this, and used the supernova’s own power to wrap a sun around it, using the supernova’s power to, well, power the sun. A sun in a state of perpetual collapse.”

“What happens when the sun dies?”

“Okay, less history, more scanning,” Anna said, feeling anxious. She still had no idea what she was about to say to… Sadasaclam!Anna, and she wasn’t very excited at the prospect at the thought that she was about to see herself fling herself into a supernova.

“Hey,” the Doctor said, walking over to her as he clasped his hands in hers. “We’ve got this.”

She bit her lip, shaking her head. “I don’t know if we do,” she answered him, honestly. She looked up at him, raising her eyebrows.

“Hey,” he said, more firmly. “We’ve got this.”

She wasn’t convinced, but she nodded anyway.

“Okay.”

“Just breathe,” he reminded her, and she took in a deep breath-

“She’s out there,” the Doctor said, and her heart jumped into her throat. She quickly ran to the doors-

“Anna, hang on!”

The Doctor caught her round the middle and she struggled.

“What’re you-”

“Sorry, just extending the air shell!” Pinstripes called from his position at the console. Bowtie, meanwhile, kept a tight grip on her.

“You can release me, now,” she told him.

“Oh, what, just because I’m not your _husband,_ you don’t even want me touching you, now?”

“There, done!” Pinstripes called out. “Should be able to talk to her at a distance, too, got us close enough. Assuming she didn’t hear the engines when we landed.”

“You didn’t turn her to silent?”

“Turn who to silent?”

“I did, don’t worry,” he said, before he released her, finally, though neither of them commented on his weird comment. She ran to the doors, opening them.

She only had a second to see herself, staring at the sun that was just out of view, the Tardis door blocking it (though she noted that he probably added a sun filter to the atmospheric shell, considering that it should’ve blinded her by now).

She was beyond startled when she felt a sudden hand clasping the back of her shirt.

“You stupid girl,” Bowtie said, as he pulled her back. “You don’t understand, do you? I am your husband, in every respect.”

“What’re you-”

She let out a cry of surprise when she was spun around, an arm slotted across her throat as she was pulled back.

“No!”

Okay, but hold on, there was Bowtie, so what… was happening, who was holding her?

“Doctor?” she questioned.

“That’s the name, don’t wear it out!”

Bowtie had his hands out as a wild fury rested in his eyes, though the terror was tucked away in the corner of his eyes.

Realization crested through her. “Oh, we’re idiots,” she said, and the Doctor barely glanced at her, looking like he was scarcely breathing. “It’s a defense mechanism. Of course she would-”

He jerked her back, suddenly, and she cried out in surprise, throwing her arms out before she clutched at the arm around her throat.

“I think that’s enough from you, don’t you, dear?”

“A defense mechanism?” Bowtie asked, though his hands were shaking. “Which means what?”

“It means he’s a cheap trick, and if I know myself, he won’t hurt any of us.”

“You sure about that?”

“Very,” she said. “I wouldn’t even kill myself by crashing my _car_ because I was so scared of hurting anyone else, I doubt that a defense mechanism I set up would hurt people, even accidentally.”

“And what if you didn’t set it up?” he asked her. “What if it was subconsciously?”

She raised her eyebrows, smiling slightly. “Even then,” she said. “I care too much about what other people think to risk hurting them. Well, at this point in my life, anyway,” she noted.

“So, it’s not a defense mechanism, then, it’s a distraction, in which case-”

She felt herself being jerked back once more and she let out a startled cry when she felt her foot slip out the door, though the rest of her was still in the Tardis.

The Doctor had anxiety written all over him.

“Anna, are you absolutely sure?”

“Even if she is, can you really take that chance?” he asked, a taunting tone in his voice. “The Coward who killed his own kind. You’re already responsible for enough deaths, aren’t you? Hands already soaked in enough blood? You don’t need to add another innocent girl to the body count you’ve piled up over the years.” He laughed. “Well, I say innocent… You wouldn’t _believe_ the things this girl has thought about doing.”

“Thought about and actually doing are two different things,” he said, his body barely moving back and forth, as if he were prepping himself to throw himself at her. “I should know.”

“Why?” he taunted once more. “Because the one that she’s with only thought about killing his own kind, whereas you did?”

She felt her certainty start to waver. She’d never thought herself capable of taunting the Doctor with one of the worst regrets of his life, even subconsciously. An Anna who was this at the end of her rope… maybe the rules had changed.

Well, there was one way to test it.

“Sorry,” she said, preemptively.

Her thought process was this: they were running out of time. If this did work, she’d save Anna, and if she didn’t, then, well, she’d save Anna. Either way, this would work.

So, she did the only thing she could do.

She threw herself back, out into space.

Well, the more accurate version was that she threw herself back into the… defense mechanism? Distraction? Making it think that she was about to be in actual harms way. When she did, she felt the hands disappear from around her, and she managed to catch herself on the edge of the Tardis doors before she turned around.

“Anna!” she called out.

Despite the fact that it wasn’t her actual name, she still turned at the sound of her voice. Her eyes widened, and she barely shook her head, glancing between her and the sun… slash supernova.

“It’s okay, it’s okay,” she said, holding out her hands, some part of her noting that the defense mechanism hadn’t returned, and it was probably because she had Sadasaclam!Anna’s attention. “It’s just… you. Me. I-”

“No, no, that’s not fair!” she said. “You’ve no right to do this, to show me a future where I live-”

“I’m not,” she said. “I promise, I’m not.”

“But how can you be here, then?” she asked, and it was at this moment that she realized there were tears imprinted on her face. “If you’re not a future me, then how can you…?”

“Genuinely, I don’t know. Neither of us are copies,” she quickly told her. “We’re both Anna. It’s just… more complicated than that,” she told her.

“Is that the name that you chose? Anna?”

“Anna Monroe,” she said.

She shook her head, swallowing. “Because you saw that you had a future, and you wanted to live it. I’ve already done everything that I was supposed to do, and now, I’m ending it.”

She shook her head. “Okay,” she said, nodding. “Okay, end it. If that’s what you really want, then it’s your choice. As it should be. As should the rest of your life. But it wasn’t,” she told her. “It wasn’t your choice, and you were alone, and I’m sorry for that. I’m so sorry for that, for how you lived your life, and I understand- believe me, I understand, but I also know that the fact that you’re here tells me that even I don’t fully understand that pain that you went through. I found a reason to live,” she told her. “But only because I had help, because I had someone who told me that life would get better, that life would be okay, and because I believed him.”

“Oh, so that’s my problem?” she asked, anger lining every inch of her face. “I just haven’t looked hard enough for the better?”

“You’ve looked harder than anybody that I know. It’s not about looking for the better. It’s not about seeing a light at the end of the tunnel. It’s about acknowledging that you are hurting, and allowing that to be okay, allowing that to- allowing yourself permission to be hurt. Because you have every right in the world to be hurt,” she told her. “What she did to you, for how long she did it-”

“This isn’t about her!” she shouted at her.

“It isn’t!” she shouted right back, and Sadasaclam!Anna flinched. “It’s about your pain and the fact that you’re scared to feel it, even for a second, because the moment that you do, you will let yourself get lost in it.” She shook her head. “Look at where you are,” she said. “I promise you, it is better to be lost than to be dead. And I promise you, when you get lost, you won’t do it alone. The Doctor will be there to help guide you out of the pain. You just have to let him help you do it.”

As she watched Sadasaclam!Anna floating back over to her as she sobbed all the while, she wondered why it had been so easy to convince her. Maybe it was because she had been her, and intricately knew her pain. It was like playing the right notes to a song that she’d memorized, simply doing it in the right key at the right time.

Maybe this was all a trick, she thought, as she floated into Anna’s arms, clinging onto her for dear life as she sobbed into her shoulder. Maybe this was just another bait and switch. She was known for her back up plans upon back up plans.

But, she couldn’t check that, now. Not just because her powers weren’t yet turned on (though she would do when her powers were back on), but because Sadasaclam!Anna was currently falling apart in her arms, collapsing to her knees to the grating below, and she had to focus on helping put the puzzle pieces back together as much as she could whilst she was here.

She could only hope that the Doctor would be enough to put the rest of the puzzle pieces them back together again.

#####

“She’s finally asleep,” she said, closing the door behind her. She’d been crying in her arms for a few hours.

“Are you okay?”

“What?” she asked, feeling, well, startled. “Yeah, I’m fine.”

“Are you sure?” he asked. “Because of what you said to Rose, in the console room.” 

She raised her eyebrows, shaking her head. “What did I say?”

“About being reminded about all of this,” he said, putting his hands in his pockets as he searched her.

“What- Oh, oh, right, no, I’m just… tired,” she said. “Yeah, I’m fine. It’s been a lot to handle, but it’s nothing I haven’t dealt with before.”

He reached out, gently tugging on her hand. “You don’t have to deal with it alone, you know,” he said. “I’m here, if you need me.”

She smiled, nodding. “I know,” she said, quietly. “Come on. We’ve a Doctor to talk to.”

“What about her?”

“She’s asleep. She’ll be asleep for some time. Depression does that to a person.”

“I don’t feel good about letting her be alone right now.”

“Fine,” she said, starting to tell him to sit with her while she talked to the Doctor, before she let out a breath, steadying herself. “One of us has to talk to the Doctor about this,” she told him. “And since you don’t know what she needs, I’m pretty much the only one that can do it. Which means that-”

“Then you can do it after she’s woken up and you’ve explained the situation.”

“What situation?”

She whirled around, surprise lighting up her face. “Hey,” she said, careful not to call her Anna. “I thought-”

“I was asleep? How could anybody sleep with you two yammering outside the door? What’s he talking about, what situation?”

She held up her hands. “Whatever you want to happen is what is happening, and not just because you’re an all powerful being, but because I respect you and your choices.” Sadasaclam!Anna bit her lip, looking down. “But, the Doctor, the pinstriped one, is more than willing to help out with whatever you need. You can exist on the Tardis, for a bit, just let yourself get lost in your grief.”

She raised her eyebrows, though she didn’t look up at her. “What about whoever he’s traveling with?” she asked her.

“What about them?”

“It’s not like I can just intrude on their time together.”

“A- you made things different, here,” she told her. “Remember? You changed things. Which means that certain people will get longer with him than they otherwise might have. Which means that, even if you do- which you won’t, because this is a time machine.”

“And…” She bit her lip, again, glancing back at Bowtie. She looked back down, barely curling in on herself. “What about him?”

“He and I are heading off as soon as you’re comfortable, which, if you’re never comfortable with that, then that’s fine,” she said, preemptively.

“It isn’t, though,” she said. “I’m just-”

“Hey,” she said, quietly, sternly. “You’re worth just as much as anybody else, which means that you’re worth his time as much as anybody else would be. Okay?”

She sniffled. “I don’t need you two here,” she said, quietly. “You two can head off, back to where you came from.”

She furrowed her brows, about to ask, before she simply nodded.

“All right,” she said. “Whatever you want. Get into contact with me if-”

“I won’t.” She turned back to the door before she stopped, glancing back. “And thank you.”

“Of course,” she said.

“Goodbye.”

“Bye,” she said, and with that she closed the door.

She was surprised when the Doctor tugged on her hand, pulling her along the hallway. When they had made it a few hallways away, he turned back to her, a sense of urgency resting about him that confused her.

“What’s the plan?” he asked her.

“Plan?” she replied, confused.

“Yes, plan,” he said. “You see what she’s doing, don’t you?”

“… Agreeing to be helped?”

“You didn’t seriously fall for that, did you? She’s you, Anna! Have you ever known yourself to give into something this easily?”

“So what are you saying?” she asked.

“That she’s so obviously lying! She’s trying to get rid of us, Anna, so that she can sneak away, into the night.”

“Except she doesn’t have to get rid of us to do that?”

“Except she thinks you’re all powerful, so yes, she would? Besides which, having two Doctors around would make it harder?”

“Neither of which would make a difference,” she told him. “If she really wants to do this, she’ll do this. We have to let her come to us, not the other way around.”

“What, you really think that two- _one_ Doctor wouldn’t be able to stop her, putting his mind to it?”

She opened her mouth- before she shut it, just as quickly.

“Fine,” she said, but the words sounded mechanical, even to her. “You make a good point.”

His face went through emotions so fast she wasn’t able to catch them all.

“Something you want to tell me, Anna?”

She got frustrated, then. “Not if you’re too blind to see it, Doctor.”

She tried to walk past him, but he grabbed her upper arm.

“See what, _Anna_?”

She searched him, sadly, and told him the thing she hadn’t wanted to tell him. “If I really wanted to- if _she_ really wanted to hurt herself, she’ll do it. Doctor or no. You won’t be able to stop her. Which means that this has to be her choice, Doctor.”

He searched her, distant, almost coldly. “You seemed to have a notion that we might be able to before. Remember? I recall it being _your_ idea to trap her in the first place, something you were _fairly_ adamant about. Were you lying then, or are you lying now?”

“Get _off_ of me,” she said, wrenching her arm out of his hold. He did so, holding up his hands in a placating manner, though his face never wavered. Still, she straightened out the bottom of her shirt indignantly. “I was panicked, before. I thought maybe-… Well, actually… I mean, I wasn’t wrong in the console room, it’s entirely possible that you might be able to, but that isn’t the point. It’s like I said before, it had to be her choice. Not anybody elses.”

“Why?”

“Because, if she doesn’t decide that she wants help, she’ll always feel like this. That pain, that anguish, it will fester inside of her, no matter how much people try to throw their ‘help’ at her. She has to want the help in order to get it. If people try to force this on her, it’ll just be another thing that’s out of her control.”

“Are you aware of what being sectioned means?”

She rolled her eyes. “Yes,” she said. “But I don’t know what that’s got to do-”

“Because non-powerfuls are sectioned when they are a danger to themselves. Right now, it’s not-”

“What’s a-” she started to ask, but he cut her off, speaking more forcefully.

“ _Right now_ , it’s not about whether or not she wants help. Right now, it’s about getting her to tomorrow. Because she can’t want help if she isn’t alive to get it. Which means that we need to make a plan on how we’re dealing with this. And, that starts by trapping her, as much as we are able.”

She shook her head. “You do this and she will never want help. Her power has been taken from her for too long, and if you do this now, she’ll just see that that cycle’ll never end.”

“Then we can show her that that cycle has been broken.”

“She won’t ever believe you, and quite honestly, I won’t help you do this. I won’t help you trap her because you’re scared.”

“This isn’t about my fear.”

“Of _course_ it is,” she said. “I saw the way that you looked when you thought I was about to die-”

“This has nothing to do with that,” he told her. “But truth be told, this will happen, one way or another. With or without you is entirely up to you.”

She frowned, watching him turn from her as he started for the console room.

“And if she did surrender?” she asked. “If she is telling the truth and she has agreed to get help?”

He turned back to look at her. “If she is still a danger to herself then precautions have to be taken.”

“And what’s the plan, here?” she asked him.

“Dunno. Thought I’d get in a little powwow with the other Doctor. You remember him, right? The other Doctor, the one that’s supposed to be helping her? Even if it means doing something that she might not see a reason for?”

“You’re not. Understanding. What I’m saying.”

“I understand completely,” he told her. “That girl has been hurt more than most people should in a lifetime, so much so that even with all the power in the entire universe, she still feels like she’s got no reason to live. I’m saying that I want to help her see the reason that life is worth living. If that starts with making it so that she can’t end herself before I can do that, then that is what I will do, even if it costs me her trust.”

She nodded. “It will,” she said. “It will cost you her trust and it will cost her her life, because she will not want to even remotely live in a world where there are people who are like _her."_

He stilled at that, before there was bare disappointment in his eyes. “Is that what you think I am? Her?” he asked. “That I’m reflecting the actions of the woman who abused you for so long? Because I’m _not._ I am _not_ her. I’m doing this to help her _live,_ not because I want to further her _hurt.”_

“But she won’t be able to see that.”

“And I’m sorry, Anna, but she never will if she’s not alive to see it.”

The Doctor turned from her, and she felt ice running through her veins.

“Seriously?” she asked, but he didn’t turn this time. “Seriously, you’re really doing this.”

“I really am,” he told her, but he didn’t look at her. She realized, in that moment, how shielded he was. He wasn’t her friend, or her husband. He was The Doctor, fully and completely, and he would do this because he thought it meant that he was saving her life. No matter how much it might kill her in the process.

“This won’t work,” she told him. “You are killing her, and for what?” she asked. “Because you’re scared?”

He didn’t respond this time, and she shook her head.

“No,” she said, stopping. “No, I won’t let you do this.” She turned, stalking off down the hall.

She was surprised, not because he was standing in front of her, but because he was standing in front of her so fast.

“Anna. You know better than anyone who I am and what it is that I do. So, you’ll want to think _very_ hard about doing this. Do you _really_ want to do this? Because I’ll do whatever I have to, to save her. Even if it means getting through you to do it.”

She felt cold in that moment, though it was more in the distant way. She wasn’t frightened of him. Not of the Doctor.

“And how exactly are you planning on doing that?” she asked him.

She saw something then, in his eyes. A reflection of the person she’d come to know, not the myths and legends that portrayed him over the years.

“Anna, please, don’t do this. Don’t make me turn into the person who stops you.” He took a step towards her. “We are on the same side here. We both want the same thing. Help me to help her.”

She took a step back, crossing her arms. “I am,” she told him. “By making sure that she knows there is someone that she can trust, no matter what happens.”

“By telling her that the person she’s meant to be trusting is planning on, what, hurting her- do not do this, Anna.”

He’d grabbed her upper arm, and she regarded him, coldly. He tried to put on a brave face, but it was failing.

“I’m giving you one-”

“Don’t say it, Doctor.” He barely flinched at that, pursing his lips. “You’re drawing a line you can’t undraw.”

“Then don’t make me draw it. Please.”

There was a genuinely pleading look in his eyes, begging her not to do this, to just be on his side.

She felt herself barely soften. “Why can’t you just trust that, in this instance, I know what’s best for her?”

“You know what’ll make her feel _safest,”_ he told her. “And right now, that isn’t a good thing.”

Realization fell through her, and she knew the shock reflected in her eyes. He wasn’t letting the hope fall through his eyes, though. Not yet.

“Oh,” she said, quietly, and she looked down at the floor, before she furrowed her brows, looking up at him. “What’s the difference?” she genuinely asked.

He wasn’t deterred, even taking a step closer to her.

“The difference is that her feeling safe means that there’s always an element of danger just around the corner, ready to strike at a moment’s notice. If we let that pattern continue, she will not recover, and that is not something that I can abide.”

She let out a sigh, shaking her head as she looked away. “What _exactly_ is your plan?”

“Are you asking because you’re trying to help, or because you’re figuring out how best to try to stop me?”

“I’m trying to help,” she said, looking up at him.

He barely smiled, though it wasn’t with any sort of warmth or friendliness. It was a courtesy more than anything else. Like how he’d smiled at the Tivoli in the Nightmare Hotel (though with noticeably less malice). “Good,” he said. “Come along, then.”

She immediately dug her heels in when he tried to drag her down the hall.

“Where to?”

“The console room,” he said, and he tugged on her arm. “Come along.”

“I can walk on my own,” she said, trying to yank her arm free. Though he wasn’t harsh about it, he didn’t release her.

“I know,” he said, before he repeated, “Come along.”

She felt herself snarl before she tried to yank her arm free once more. He once again kept his hand clasped on her upper arm.

“You’re an ass,” she told him, in no uncertain terms.

“If it keeps you alive, I’ll happily take on that roll.”

She didn’t try to yank her arm out of his grip.

But, she didn’t try to speak, either.

It meant that they were walking to the console room in silence.

#####

“So, what’s the plan, then?” she asked, hugging herself. The Doctor had finally released her, though he was keeping himself between her and the door. Not that it was necessary. It wasn’t like she was about to run back to her and try to help her escape, or anything. She hadn't even tried, as Asshole Bowtie explained the situation to Pinstripe.

“Currently, I’ve got no idea, but we can brainstorm something. Considering that you’re helping, and everything,” he reminded her.

“You don’t have to be so condescending about it.”

“I’m not trying to be,” he told her. “And if that is how I'm coming across, then I am sorry. I want to help her, and that means, right now, doing something that she might not like. It might be easier, though, if you told us how to ease that pain.”

“Not trapping her would be a good start,” she pointed out.

“Even if it means that she can get out at any time and throw herself into a supernova, thereby ending her life, fairly ineffectually, considering she’d be dying over and over again.”

“It would be better than being conscious all the time,” she said.

There was a brief pause, before he began to speak. “Is that a no on ideas?”

“No," she said, a note of desperation in her voice as she rubbed at her forehead. “I’m just not even sure where to _start_ with something like this. It _literally_ tears at _every_ fiber of my being, to even _talk_ about trapping her.”

“Then don’t think of it like that,” he said. “Think of it as helping her.”

She felt the snarl envelope her face before the laugh bubbled up. “You did not just say that.”

“I didn’t mean it in the way that it’s no doubt reminded you of,” he told her.

“Oh my god, stop talking to me like I’m- I'm one of them!" she said, turning back to look at him, which was leaps and bounds from where she’d been.

“One of who?” he asked.

“One of the people that you save, like I’m some-some _outsider_ who doesn’t understand _anything_ about you! I know more about you than anyone has in your entire _life,_ more than you probably want anybody to _ever_ know-”

“But this isn’t _about_ me, is it?” he asked. “This is about _her,_ the woman that I am trying so _desperately_ to save! You want me to stop talking to you like you're an outsider? Then stop _acting_ like one. Stop _acting_ like what she wants is more important than her life, because the _most_ important thing _is_ her life, even if neither of you can see that!”

Anger rushed through him as quick as anything, and she watched as he turned away, not even trying to calm himself.

“I’m trying to save her life-”

“You’re trying to preserve old patterns that you think kept her alive-”

“Because they _did._ Doing this, being _alone, running_ from people who made her feel trapped, _that_ is how she stayed alive past eleven years of being suicidal. _Eleven years_ , Doctor. Eleven years with at least three of them spent every _single_ day thinking that it would be better to be dead than alive. You want to tell me that I don’t know what’s _best_ for her? I fucking _was_ her, so don’t you goddamn _dare_ tell me that _I don’t know what’s best for her, you_ cow.” She searched him, feeling rage devolving through her. He didn’t turn back to look at her, didn’t do her the courtesy. “The thing that’ll keep her alive is not trapping her, the thing that will keep her alive is trusting her when she says that she’ll get help.”

Everything fell out of him. She watched it happen, as he devolved back to that stranger.

“I’m sorry you feel that way,” he said, and he did something he’d never done before.

He dismissed her. Completely and utterly, he dismissed her. She watched as he walked back over to the console, speaking with his other self, even as his other self glanced at her.

“She said that there was a way that we’d found to turn her powers back on. I think if we scan her, we should be able to-”

Maybe it was because she realized that he was serious, but she knew that if he did this, Sadasaclam!Anna would die. She couldn’t let that happen.

She grit her teeth before she spoke.

“If you make it so that she can’t teleport off the Tardis, that should do it. No need to do anything else,” she said. “Increase the molecular density, or- or make it so that-” she shook her head, looking down. “God, I hate this,” she said, her face crumpling, before she shook her head again. “However you can do that, to make it so that the molecules can’t be moved around, do that. She won’t be looking to get out of the Tardis anytime soon, but if she does exit her room, you can make… like, a block, just for her, that stretches for a really long time so that, at the very least, she’s… distracted.”

She shook her head, gritting her teeth.

“If she tries to teleport out and finds that she can’t, then just tell her that… that she can’t, or that you’re doing repairs or something. I’m sure you’ll be able to lie to her.” She shook her head again before she squeezed her eyes shut. “Initiate 51/50 protocols, make it so that she can’t access…” she felt the sob welling up in her chest, but every bit of her was angry, so it wasn’t hard not to, no matter how much she wanted to. “Any rooms that have sharp objects, or things she can hurt herself with. Um…” she shook her head. “If you-if you make it harder for the molecules to move, to be manipulated, she won’t be able to do as much. And…” She shook her head again, looking down even further. “Don’t put her to sleep. Don’t force her to come out of her room, and if she doesn’t want medication, don’t force it on her. Even hospitals don’t make you take medication if you don’t want them, and yes, I’m speaking from experience, so shut up.” She felt frustration burst through her. “Just shut up!”

She looked up at them, desperately.

“You have no right to do this!”

Bowtie held up his hands placatingly, taking steps towards her. She immediately moved back, shaking her head, though there was that same desperation on her face. He paused where he’d stepped.

“Maybe not,” he said. “But if I will do it, if it means keeping her alive.”

She realized what he was, then. The man who made the hard choices. He was the Doctor. And, he was doing what the Doctor did. Making the hard choice because people would live as a result.

He was making the hard choice of standing against her because it meant that she would live.

She put her hands over her mouth, collapsing.

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” she said, past her sobs.

“Hey, hey, I’ve got you,” he said, holding her. “Sh, I’ve got you, I’ve got you.”

She didn’t know what got into her, then. She could blame it on the high strung emotions, or the realization that the Doctor was being his usual amazing self, but in the next moment, she didn’t see him as anything but her Doctor.

It was why she reached out, kissing him.

It must’ve caught him off guard because he pulled back, surprised, and she shook her head.

“Sorry,” she said, quietly, shaking her head. “I’m sorry.”

It wasn’t until that moment that she realized it wasn’t only her head shaking, it was the rest of her, too.

“Come on,” he said, taking off his coat. He wrapped it around her, placing it around her shoulders, before he led her to the jumpseat, sitting her down on it. He crouched down in front of her, even as she stared listlessly at the grating, though he rubbed her upper arms, like he was trying to get heat back into them. “Once this is finished, we’ll head back to the Tardis,” he told her, quietly. She closed her eyes, shaking her head.

“I don’t want to talk about this,” she said, quietly. “I’m not-I’m not mad, or anything, I just- I can’t talk about this right now.”

“That’s fine, Anna. That’s totally understandable. Just give us a mo, all right?”

She nodded her understanding, clutching onto the jacket between her fingertips. He moved away from her, but she didn’t move from her spot. Not until they’d landed the Tardis and were already exiting. She didn’t say anything to the other Doctor, but what was strange was the fact that he didn’t try to, either, not even a last minute nugget of wisdom.

Maybe because there was part of him that understand that sometimes, words just didn’t help.

##AM##

They made their way back to the Tardis in silence, Anna shivering all the while. She couldn’t believe how hard today had been, how hard it still was. But, that was the Doctor’s life. Doing the hard thing because, sometimes, there were no good choices, but he still had to choose.

She shook her head, biting her lip as she sat down outside of the Tardis.

“I’m not heading inside,” she told him, quietly.

“Then we can just be out here,” he told her, "until you’re ready.”

“I won’t be, ever,” she told him, looking up at him. “We can’t just do that to her, just leave her in that situation. She won’t understand, she won’t know-”

“I won’t ask if you trust me,” he interrupted her, his hands in his pockets as he stood over her. “Because right now, I think that would be salt on an already open wound. But, I will ask you this: After seeing everything that you have seen about me, do you feel like I am ill-equipped to deal with that situation?”

She bit her lip, before she shook her head, looking down. “No,” she said, quietly.

“Then is it possible that she might be okay?”

She nodded, pulling the sleeves of his coat over her fingers. “Yes."

“Then would it be okay if we headed back inside, now?”

She looked out at Times Square. “Yes,” she said. She looked away from him. “I still hate this, though.”

“Hate what?”

“You, treating me like I’m an _outsider."_ She said the word like it was a curse word, looking back down at her lap as she rolled the sleeves of his coat through her fingers.

There was barely a pause between them. “In that scenario, I had to do what I did to save her life. Even if it meant treating you like… one of the people that I save. Because there is nothing more important than saving a life.”

She stood up at that, reaching out and kissing him, hard. He wasn’t as surprised by it this time, but he didn’t push her away, either. Instead, he wrapped an arm around her waist, pushing her back against the door. He started to deepen the kiss before she felt the door come open behind her, and she felt herself being pushed back into the Tardis.

The interior was darkened, though she didn’t notice that until she pulled away from him, pushing her hands against his chest as she pushed him away.

“Doctor, we can’t do this,” she said.

He honest to goodness _growled,_ clasping tightly onto her wrist. “Why not?” he asked.

She felt something that couldn’t be a thrill of fear running through her. “Because I don’t want to,” she firmly said.

He immediately released her, taking a step back as he held up his hands, though it looked like he was getting his breath back. “Anna, I won’t do anything that you don’t want me to-”

“Well, that’s a relief to hear, cause I’d have to kick your sorry arse if that weren’t the case.”

Both of them looked at the voice that had spoken. It appeared to be the 13th Doctor, standing in what had previously been the darkened console room, but was now lit up with a light that surrounded her.

“Hello, Anna. We’ve to talk.”

She felt it. The rush of energy as they were teleported away from wherever it was that they were. She didn’t know where they were, now, but it was some room somewhere that was lit up not from the light of the 13th Doctor, who was slowly losing her light (which she assumed was courtesy of a future Anna).

“What’re you doing here?” she asked, still feeling herself reeling from emotions of the day.

“It’s like I said. We need to talk.”

“Care to clarify, or are you going to be miss mystic the entire time?”

“Back in Pompeii-”

She shook her head, turning away. “We really don’t need to drudge this up right now.”

“I lied,” she said, and everything about Anna froze, though she felt herself turning to look back at the 13th Doctor without actually doing the moving herself (in the way that she was numb, not that anybody was moving her body for her). “Or, you lied to me, would be a better way to put that. Said that what we did worked, that the paradox was enough.” She shook her head, though Anna felt relief rushing through her. She wasn’t sure how much more of this she could take. “Apparently, there were some… complications. So, after that didn't work, we ended up having to harness the power of the paradoxes that came from you not having your feelings. And... the person we're trying to save... Or were, at any rate.”

She frowned, looking down at the Doctor. “Are they okay?”

She realized, in that moment, that the 13th Doctor looked tired. More tired than she’d ever seen her look. “They’re alive. What we did is a poor man’s solution, but there’s that, at least.”

“You must really care about them,” she said. “You don’t normally get this broody about people that you don’t care as much about.”

“Stop it,” she said. “It’s not funny.”

“I’m not laughing,” she said, and she’d never said anything so true in her entire life.

The Doctor shook her head. “It’s like I said, they’re alive,” she continued. “That’s all that matters, in the end. Even if it is a poor excuse of a life.”

She narrowed her eyes, remembering what she'd said. “I don’t understand,” she said. “I thought my feelings were me, influencing the universe or… whatever.”

“Your feelings are much more complicated than either of us ever knew,”

She shook her head. “Okay, but also, you’re… saying that you wanted me to turn off my powers so that you could… harness the power of the paradoxes that happened from my not following my feelings?” she shook her head. “Except you can’t have done. Because the Tardis-”

“-was against this plan, every step of the way. She’s not even letting either of us back in right now. Not like you’re fighting her, either.”

“Seriously?” she asked. “You want to be inside of an 11th dimensional being that’s pissed off at you?”

“You’ll say about the same, in the future. My point was, that was me, dressed up in fancy dress.”

Her eyes narrowed again. “It couldn’t have been,” she told her. “You said things only the Tardis knew-”

“Because I’d seen ‘her’ saying them, in the conversation that you showed me. I said what I had done, as her. It was meant to give you the final push, to do what needed to be done, but I never meant any of what I said then, either,” she told her. “I promise, I didn’t, and look at you, now. You willingly shut off your powers so that you could live your life with me, so that you could show yourself that you could trust me-”

“Can I?”

“Anna,” she said, sounding slightly hurt.

She shook her head. “Sorry,” she said. “Sorry, just… long day- _bad_ day. Long, bad day.”

“I know the feeling.”

She glanced up at her before she shook her head. “I’m sorry I couldn’t do it. Save whoever it was what needed saving.”

“Normally, I’d tell you it isn’t your fault, but unfortunately, this time, it _is_ on both of us.”

She raised her eyebrows listlessly, laughing much the same. “That’s different. You actually letting me take the blame this time.”

“Just this once, you deserve it.”

She felt the sting. “New feeling, a Doctor angry at me and not the other way around.”

“Never said I was angry with you,” she said. “Just said you didn’t save someone you could’ve done. Bound to happen eventually, though I wish-” she stopped herself, barely laughing. “What a horribly selfish thought that was, and I don’t even care for a second because it’s true.”

She raised her eyebrows, surprise running through her. “Is it me?” she asked.

“What?” she replied.

“The person that you’re trying to save.”

“No,” she said, heaving out a sigh. “No, it’s someone that I care about even more than you. Never thought I’d say that, but here we are.”

She furrowed her brows before she narrowed her eyes. “Why do this now? Why tell me this now?”

“Because it’s time to turn your powers back on.”

She smiled humorlessly. “Just like that?” she asked. “You get to decide-” she bit her lip, closing her eyes. “No, that’s not how I meant it, but shouldn’t I get some say, considering that these are my powers?”

“Anna, you need your powers on,” she said. “You have to follow your feelings. They are important, so important, more important than you can know.”

“And why’s that, then?”

She smiled sadly. “Spoilers,” she said, before she started to approach Anna.

Anna, especially after the day she’d had, deserved all the medals for not flinching back.

“What’re you doing?”

“Turning your powers back on.”

She frowned as she brought her hands up to her face, resting them there. “And how’re you doing that, then?”

“Like this.”

She was surprised when she brought her lips crashing down onto hers.

It wasn’t just a kiss. It was everything that she hadn’t been able to say but everything she’d so desperately wanted to. A moment later, Anna’s brain kicked into gear and started to kiss her back.

A moment after that, she felt it. The knot loosening in her chest, the power rushing through her. She cringed back, gasping in a breath as the Doctor held her up.

“See?” she asked. “True love’s kiss works every time.”

She barely laughed at that. “Didn’t peg you for a hopeless romantic.”

“Really wasn’t before you came along.”

She barely glanced up at her, not mentioning a certain blonde she’d seen not hours ago.

It especially didn’t come up because she released her, taking a few steps back.

“Where are you off to?” she asked, rubbing at her chest uncomfortably. It obviously wasn’t the kiss that had brought the powers back. Future Anna had just turned them back on, and had used the kiss as a front because she’d remembered herself doing that.

“Back to the future,” she said, before she closed her eyes, groaning. “I did not just say that.”

“You did, though,” she said, and even after the day she’d had, she couldn’t help but smile.

The Doctor shook her head, looking down at her with a slight smile on her face. It fell, and she opened her mouth, about to say something that she probably shouldn’t. “Anna?”

“Yeah?” she asked, despite knowing that she shouldn’t.

But, the Doctor didn’t say whatever she shouldn’t have, probably considering warning her of the future that was yet to come. Instead, she closed her mouth, smiling. “I love you,” she said.

“Love you, too.”

She disappeared, and Anna smiled softly at the spot where her wife had been, whispering two words.

“My Doctor.”

She lost her smile a moment later as she thought about what she had yet to do.

She had a choice, now. Head back to the Chen marketplace and pick up where she’d left off, or head back to the Anna she’d so recklessly abandoned with a Doctor who thought he understood pain that he didn’t.

It wasn’t really a choice, was it?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: This behemouth of a chapter is over! I hope you enjoyed it and the themes that it explored. That being said, if you or someone you know is struggling with depression or thoughts of suicide, you’re not alone. The number for the national suicide prevention hotline is 1(800)273-8255. For those not in the US, visit suicide . org / international-suicide-hotlines.html (take the spaces out).  
> As always, thank you for reading, and don’t forget to review!


	29. The Stolen Earth

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: Hello, and welcome back! I hope everybody enjoyed their Septembers. If you didn't see on my profile, I took a quick mental health break from all things that weren't IRL related, as my life took a turn for the strange (and that's outside of the whole quarantine situation). That being said, I am back in time for October, as I said I would be!  
> I'll admit, this chapter is basically a rip-off of the transcript for Stolen Earth, but it's important (for more reasons than one). It's also incredibly short, but I hope that you still enjoy!  
> Quick note if you didn't see, I updated chapters one-seven so that they're now one-four with minor edits.  
> Also, speaking of edits I have to make, I spent ten+ hours editing Chapter... what is it now, twenty eight? Because the stupid doc manager kept acting up. I know I've got about a million and four grammatical errors in that chapter that I fully intend to head back and fix one day. Today just is not that day.  
> Now, onto the story!  
> I still don't own Doctor Who (shocking, I know).

She appeared in the console room, exactly where she hadn't meant to. It appeared that the Doctor was mid-regeneration.

_Well, there's that, then,_ she told herself, shielding herself from the light of his regeneration.

Instead of appearing ten seconds after she'd teleported out, she'd found her way to the console room about an hour or so after they'd already done... Well, the entire episode, come to think of it.

The question was, why hadn't they stuck around to find out where she'd ended up?

#####

When time unfroze, Anna was nowhere to be found.

He searched her for about an hour before he gave up, figuring that if a different timeline version of herself had business to attend to with her, he couldn't exactly get in the way of that. Besides, the look on the other Anna's face had seemed important, and he didn't want to interrupt. It was one thing to have two different timeline versions of himself to contend with, it was another thing entirely to have an all-powerful being visit herself. That probably spelled more trouble than even he could've handled.

She would return when she was ready, and that aside, he trusted... herself to keep herself safe.

In the meantime, he sought out Donna to find her in a tent. "All right, then?" he asked.

He was more than surprised when Donna rushed over to him, giving him a hug. He laughed a little.

"What was that for?"

She barely pulled back, shaking her head. "I don't know," she said, laughing, but there was relief in everything about her.

It was then that his eyes landed on the beetle and knew that trouble had come to call.

#####

"But what I don't get is where Anna was," she said. "Cause she could've done way more for you than I ever could."

"Oh..." he said, pieces falling into place. "No, of course..."

"What?" she asked.

He quickly dove into the explanation of the two Anna's.

"But that still begs the question of why she didn't stick around," Donna pointed out. "She could've saved you, but she didn't, so why?"

"That's... actually a really good question," he said, leaning forward and rubbing his jaw as he contemplated the answer.

Donna was right. Anna couldn't always save everyone (even if she'd eventually revealed that she _had_ saved the village that the Family of Blood had tried to bomb to dust, as well as the whole of Pompeii. He briefly smiled as he thought about what a good night that had been when she'd told him), but that didn't mean that she wouldn't if the chance arose.

"Maybe the timeline had to exist," he told her, looking over at her. "Maybe it was important for you to exist through that. Mind you, parallel universes do seem to pop up around you a lot."

"Hold on, you said parallel worlds are sealed off."

"They are," he agreed. "But- well, mind you, unless you're Anna, but anyway, you had one created around you. Most times, this thing'll just change a life in tiny little ways and the universe just compensates around it, but, well, there we are, another parallel world."

"How'd you mean?" she asked.

"Well, The Library, now this."

"Just goes with the job, I suppose."

It wasn't the first time that the Doctor had thought about it, but it was the first time he was sharing his thoughts with her.

"Sometimes I think there's way too much coincidence around you, Donna. I met you once, then I met you again. In the whole wide universe, I met you for a second time. It's like something's binding us together."

"Don't be so daft. I'm nothing special."

"Yes you are. You're brilliant."

Donna got a thoughtful look on her face, barely turning away from him. "She said that," she told him.

He frowned. "Who, Anna?"

"No, you git," she said, and he would never admit that he barely pouted. "That woman." She frowned deeper before she shook her head. "I can't remember."

Wanting to reassure her, he shook his head. "Well, she never existed, now," he told her.

"No, but she said the stars. She said the stars are going out."

"Yeah, but that world's gone," he gently reminded her.

"No, but she said it was all worlds." He searched her, wavering between interrupting her to remind her that that world had never existed and opting to listen patiently. He didn't feel like getting a smack so he did the latter. "Every world. She said the darkness is coming even here."

He frowned at that. "Who was she?"

"I don't know."

"What did she look like?"

"She was blonde."

It was strange, then, what those simple words could do to him. He didn't feel hope like he thought he might. Instead, it was some kind of dread that filled him now, and he leaned back in his seat a little, the tent suddenly too small.

He still managed to make the words leave his mouth. "What was her name?"

"I don't know."

More insistent now, he asked, "Donna, what was her name?"

It was very hard to resist the urge to reach out and shake her. He barely managed it. "But she told me to warn you. She said two words."

The words echoed in his head, but he still asked. "What two words? What were they? What did she say?"

"Bad Wolf."

He felt everything falling out of him and through him, all at the same measure.

"Well, what does it mean?" Donna asked.

Instead of answering her question, he ran outside to see every bit of writing in the market had been translated to reflect those two words. The Tardis was trying to tell him that it was her, that it was her, it was really her.

It was Rose.

After all this time and she was coming back. Except, he couldn't think like that, because he'd no idea if she were _actually_ -

_The stars are going out._

And, if the stars were going out, then why wouldn't that then mean that the walls between the worlds were breaking down as well?

He ran into the Tardis to find that the emergency lighting had been activated, the cloister bell tolling. He didn't know if Rose was returning, but he knew one thing. If those words were written, then-

"It's the end of the universe."

#####

Except, it wasn't.

He and Donna landed on Earth to find that everything was exactly as it should've been.

"It's fine," he said, even though he didn't need to. Hearing it out loud was comforting, and a welcome distraction from the thought that he was about to see Rose again and the wedding ring that was currently sitting on his left hand and how much more complicated that made all this (which _definitely_ wasn't what he should be focusing on, _end of the universe, remember_?).

He nodded, searching his surroundings.

"Everything's fine. Nothing's wrong, all fine." His eyes landed on a milkman and he quickly moved to him. "Excuse me. What day is it?"

"Saturday," he answered, and to his credit, he barely missed a beat at the question.

He nodded in response before turning away, distracted, the milkman walking away now that he was no longer needed (convenient, that). "Saturday. Good. Good. I like Saturdays."

Immediate danger passed, Donna got to the important issue (well, in her mind, anyway). "So, I just met Rose Tyler?"

"Yeah."

"But she's locked away in a parallel world."

He remembered it in full detail. Watching in excruciating detail as Rose's grip slipped, as she was pulled towards the wall, how his twenty thoughts had turned into twenty thousand frantic ones as he tried to think about how to save her, but he couldn't, and he hadn't. Her dad had saved her where he hadn't, appearing at exactly the right moment.

He shook the thought from his mind, starting back towards the Tardis. "Exactly. If she can cross from her parallel world to your parallel world, then that means the walls of the universe are breaking down, which puts everything in danger. Everything. But how? Anna- _Anna_!"

"What, what is it, what's wrong?"

"I forgot about Anna!" he shouted, running around the console to set it for the Chen Marketplace.

"You forgot about your own _wife_?"

"The universe was ending!" he pointed out.

"You _forgot_ about your own-"

The Tardis shuddered to the side. Both of them jolted, holding on.

"What the hell was that?" Donna asked.

"Don't know. It came from outside."

When the Doctor opened the door, Donna pointed out the obvious. "But we're in space. How did that happen? What did you do?"

He ran back up the gangway before he shook his head. "We haven't moved. We're fixed. It can't have. No. The Tardis is still in the same place, but the Earth is gone. The entire planet. It's gone."

Donna shook her head. "But if the Earth's been moved, they've lost the sun. What about my mum? And granddad? They're dead, aren't they? Are they dead?"

The Doctor chewed on his lip, trying to decide if Anna would've intervened on the Earth's behalf.

He felt everything in him grow cold.

What if this was why her parallel world had to be constructed? What if Anna had allowed this to happen (the other Anna, mind) because Donna had to survive... but the rest of the planet didn't?

"Doctor-"

"I don't know, Donna," he snapped at her.

What a waste it was, he thought, that Anna could save Pompeii but she couldn't save the billions of people on the Earth.

"I just don't know," he said, because he didn't. "I'm sorry, I don't know."

At least, he hoped he didn't.

"That's my family. My whole world."

He scoured the screens again for good measure before he shook his head. "There's no readings. Nothing. Not a trace. Not even a whisper." he shook his head. Whatever it was, it wasn't good. "Oh, that is fearsome technology."

Donna asked the obvious question, then.

"So, what do we do?"

He rubbed at his face. "Well, since Anna isn't here... We've got to get help."

"From where?"

But goodness, he hated to say it, hated that he even had to think it. "Donna, I'm taking you to the Shadow Proclamation. Hold Tight!"

#####

A lot happened to get them to the street where it would all end, only the Doctor didn't know that at the time.

He was standing there, looking around as Donna commented.

"Like a ghost town," she said.

He ignored this. Of course it would be. What else would it be when the daleks were involved?

He suddenly wished more fervently that Anna was at his side, trying to ignore the ache in his chest as he thought about her, completely helpless and alone.

Well, helpless, no, but alone, certainly. Even without her many abilities, she was never truly helpless. But, in the midst of all this, he'd rather have Anna by his side, in his sight, where he knew that the daleks couldn't reach her.

Ooh, he'd no idea if they already had. He really wished he hadn't had that thought.

He tried to distract himself with the situation at hand.

"Sarah Jane said they were taking people. What for? Think, Donna. When you met Rose in that parallel world, what did she say?"

Donna, who had been extremely helpful up to this point, was annoyingly not.

"Just, the darkness is coming."

"Anything else?"

She started to open her mouth to speak before a look devolved over her face, one that he couldn't decipher. He frowned, searching her, wondering, for a moment, if Anna had suddenly appeared behind him and they were all saved (assuming that she could even do anything, but also, what a horrifying thought that was, because it meant she'd died on Chen, alone and afraid, and it wasn't meant to happen like that. He prefer it not happen at all, but if it were to happen, then let it not happen like that, where she was alone and afraid and wondering-).

Donna looked over at him, interrupting his rather macabre thought process. "Why don't you ask her yourself?"

He frowned even deeper at her. Donna pointed behind him.

It was the moment that would change everything. When he turned to look behind him, he saw her.

Rose.

He'd told Anna once that there'd always be a place in his hearts for Rose, and even though time had passed, there still was. He didn't love her nearly as fiercely or as devastatingly. It wouldn't tear his hearts out and shatter them to pieces to lose her again. But, in that moment, seeing her for the first time in what had to be nearly sixty years, he forgot everything else, because she was still Rose, young and beautiful and, most importantly, running towards him.

Even if she wasn't the love of his lives anymore, he still found himself doing the same.

There was some part of him that always knew the daleks would one day be his downfall. He apparently wasn't wrong, because he heard the, "Exterminate!" being shouted from somewhere down a side street.

The dalek extermination ray hit him, and that was how it started.

But, it was nowhere near over.

#####

So, there she was, Anna, bitter and exhausted and wanting nothing more than to curl up in bed with her husband and have a good cry about the day's events.

Of course she would make the choice to teleport back here instead of with Sadasaclam!Anna. Even if she was naïve enough to think that the Doctor didn't actually understand her pain, she knew that fighting him on this would hurt Sadasaclam!Anna more than it needed to, and she didn't want that. She wanted what she had always wanted for her, which was for her to get help, no matter the cost.

She was distracted from any and all thoughts when the Doctor finished regenerating, but it wasn't just because he'd finished regenerating.

Standing before her wasn't Pinstripes.

"What the-" she started, under her breath, before she unconsciously glanced around. It took her a moment to know why she was doing so, but when she did, her eyes widened as large as saucers.

The hand wasn't there, and much to her horror, she realized that it never had been.

**Continued in: Part II: The Next Doctor**

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: And there you have it, folks, the end of A Matter of Perspective and onto the next story, The New Doctor! Not to spoil anything, but yes, we are saying goodbye to Pinstripes and saying hello to the new Doctor (as the story title suggests). This was the 'thing' that I kept alluding to way back when, and I'm very excited to see how you guys react to this new development.  
> That being said, thank you so much to everyone who read and reviewed throughout the course of this story. Your support meant the world to me, and I hope to see you guys at the next story (with the first chapter already having been posted), as I have a lot more adventures planned and new stories to tell (as well as questions to answer, with more questions to come).  
> As always, thanks for reading, and also as always, don't forget to review!


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